Page:The Bengali Book of English Verse.djvu/150

Things dearer than the world is worth,
In speech their brimming hearts break forth
Words that with ravishing music pierce
Each other's hearts, each other's ears.
Hers are dim murmurs, his a voice
That makes the silent air rejoice.

Health glows upon their cheeks, its flood
Courses impetuous in their blood;
They feel like some absorbing truth
The fulness of their godlike youth,
Its strength, its beauty, its delight
O'erflows their bosoms, fills their sight.
And all this garden, all this glade,
Water and wind and flower and shade,
The leaves that sigh, the bird that sings
Seem one ambrosial chain of things,
One happy whole, where they are parts.
It is the fragrance of their hearts
That the rose breathes: the water's sound
Answers a feeling near, profound,
And flashing, eddying fast and bright
It leaps with their own heart's delight.
Those spheres of solemn light on high
Shine but in glorious sympathy,
And heaven seems for no other end
Spread there, but over them to bend.
Theirs is the pomp, theirs is the power
Of Nature in this sovereign hour.
For them the balmy woodlands show
Their virgin wealth: the hyacinths grow
For them, for them the nightingale
Tells all her rich melodious tale.
Earth seems one flowery empire green
And they its happy king and queen.