Bloom-Sisters

     Who by watching it long can see
For its future bloom, the white and pink
     Creep up the cells of the Apple-tree
To the yearning buds that gape to drink
     The warm showers of an April noon?
     Or trace in the ooze of the dark lagoon
     The pearl and the gold, that shall unfold
To a pure Nymphea with the coming moon?
     Is there one who knows where the tint of the rose
          Is lodged in the crypts of the underground?
     And how its darkling way is found
     To the ducts of the leafless stem, unbound
          From the bondage of the winter snows?

Somewhere they lurk, and ye know not where—
     Somehow they come, and ye know not how;
They steal upon you unaware,
     Till suddenly, over every bough,
Like feathery snow, the apple-blooms
     Rise from their locked buds’ busting tombs.
          In a resurrection rich and rare!
     And dotting the ??, the lilies rear
Their lovely forms, oh, sweet as fair,
While Eglantines by the mossy wall
Invite[?] with myriad blossoms, all
     The wanderers of the scented air.
They come in their royal opulence,
Ye ask o longer how nor whence
But taste their beauty by soul and sense1

Can ye read in the depths of a maiden’s heart,—
     Some household darling’s, shy and sweet—
The unshaped dreams of love, that start
So vaguely they lend it no quiet heat;
So softly they wake no consciousness?
     But stir in the blood, like a rose in the sap
Evolving its petals in blind, dull heat?
Should her faint dreams grow to a vagrant lap
Of her secret bower,—she would blush, and feel
Their bloom on her cheek, as fair and sweet
As the wild-rose in its dim retreat.
     When its hidden hues to the sunlight steal.
Her love is the luck in her veins today;
Wherever it came and whither it goes.
For whom shall it open? ah who can say?
Not she, nor I, nor another knows!

Tomorrow the shy face turns way.
     The lashes droop on the tender eyes,
     To the silent ‘”whom?” her heart replies
The bud unfolds, and its warm depth shows;
New love is no longer a bud, but a rose;
And me, too, blush, as if, over-hold,
We had stolen the secret her hiding told!

What is the essence that seeks a form
In lily nad rose, and climbs up, warm,
Through the rough hold[??] of the apple-tre,
To scatter its odors far and free?
What is the secret soul that lies
In the boy’s frank heart and the maiden’s eyes,
Unknown to both, till it seems to rush
In a sudden thrill and a tell-tale blush.
A sweet, bewildering, glad surprise?
Answer me that and ye answer this.
A pure white rose and pure red kiss
     Are sisters, by one Mother Soul,
The hedge-row-blooms, and the star-flowers, strown
Through the Milky Way, her hand hath sown,
And alike they yield to her calm control
The blush of the Maid and the apple-tree’s blush
Are one with the flame of the Burning Bush!