To One Refined by Suffering

A Summer dawn with virgin zone
Goes slowly to its cloudless throne,
So silently it climbs the skies
We know not when the darkness dies;
But while we gaze, the little room
Is rich with morning’s opening bloom.

So climbs into our dusky lives
The love-light, that for us survives
Our night of care, which ere we know,
Is flooded with its overflow;
Till, for ourselves, the full heart asks
No sweeter gifts than love’s light tasks.

From every form and essence fine
Some image comes in hue or line,
For symbol of that whitening soul
That burns, a saintly aureole
Around our darling’s stainless brow, —
Fit for its amaranth even now.

Slow ripening on its fragile rest,
How sweet the spirit in her breast!
A flower unkissed by sun or storm,
How fair and delicate her form!
A drifting waif through perils rife,
How precious is that slender life!

A pure ethereal flame to burn
Over its alabaster urn;
It floats and clings so lightly there
It seems a spirit of the air,
Uncertain if to stay or fly,
But ever pointing to the sky!

A lily with its sweets; and we
But idle butterfly and bee
To hover round its spotless bloom,
Fanning its leaves with painted plume,
Or, from its golden heart to bear
Some vital bloom-dust unaware!

A white angelic carrier-dove
With sweetest messages from above,
Dropped panting in our heavier glooms,
The breath of Eden in her plumes;
And in her eye a look to call
Some touch of tenderness from all!

An angel masked in mortal clay
Who, as the veil is worn away,
Shines through the crystallizing form
With seraph beauty, white and warm, 
Till, almost gleam the wings beneath
Their elytra’s relaxing sheath!

A human heart that round her sows
White love, — the fairest flower that blows;
A human soul refined by fire,
With patience that no pang can tire; —
In vain my plaintive song I raise,
Be her own loveliness her praise!