OUR love is not a fading, earthly flower: Its winged seed dropped down from paradise, And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower, Doth momently to freshen beauty rise: To us the leafless autumn is not bare, Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green, Our summer hearts make summer's fulness, where No leaf, or bud, or blossom may be seen: For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie, Love, -- whose forgetfulness is beauty's death, Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and I Into the infinite freedom openeth, And makes the body's dark and narrow grate The wind-flung leaves of Heaven's palace-gate. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 19. TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN THE SHEPHEARDES CALENDER: JANUARY by EDMUND SPENSER ENOCH ARDEN by ALFRED TENNYSON STORM AT SEA (1) by ALCAEUS OF MYTILENE PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 62. AL-MUMIT by EDWIN ARNOLD A SOUTHERN NIGHT by MATTHEW ARNOLD |