Speak, and tell me, pretty flower,
How you get your beauty's dower —
Tints so delicately fair
You in your sunny bosom wear;
Lips so chaste in form and hue,
Eye of most celestial blue;
And this delicious breath that blends
So divinely with the air —
Your very spirit that ascends
In a never-ceasing prayer!

Lip so chaste, and breath so sweet —
Lip and breath have no replying.
Living beauty at my feet,
In its very beauty dying!
I can only gaze and ponder
On an everlasting wonder.

List! it speaks! — Yea, we inherit
A spirit-ear — it speaks in spirit: —
" Praise God — be joyous for the power
Of seeing beauty in a flower,
And for the still repeated No
Unto thy question, How we grow .
The beasts beside us in the field
Know not our beauty, neither start
Unanswerable thoughts; we yield
No stir of wonder in their heart
And so they die; but thou shalt not —
Even by virtue of the thought
Thou see'st can be accomplish'd never
Thou, a questioner for ever
Of the still receding Yea ,
Needs must have eternal day! "