SPRING: PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY: THE SENSITIVE PLANT

2018  0304 09  Spring: Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Sensitive Plant

 

A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,

And the young winds fed it with silver dew,

And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.

And closed them beneath the kisses of Night.

And the Spring arose on the garden fair,

Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;

And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast

Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

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The snowdrop, and then the violet,

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,

And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent

From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.

Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,

And narcissi, the fairest among them all,

Who gaze on their eyes in the stream’s recess,

Till they die of their own dear loveliness;

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And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed,

Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,

Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air

The soul of her beauty and love lay bare:

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,

The sweetest flower for scent that blows;

And all rare blossoms from every clime

Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

***                                  ***                                   ***

           

The snowdrop, and then the violet, 

Arose from the ground

                                        


For the Full Text of Shelley's Poem "The Sensitive Plant": [Click Here]

For the Full Text of Shelley's Book "The Sensitive Plant": [Click Here]

For Analysis of Shelley's Poem -- "The Sensitive Plant": [Click Here]