Classic Poem

You nymphs that blossom in the shade,
If every flower that drinks the dew
The symbol be of some fair maid,
To what shall I resemble you?

Since not a fragrance nor a bloom,
That makes the glory of your fields,
But in its freshness or perfume
Some likeness to your beauty yields.

One to a chaste magnolia's flower,
Sole bud upon the virgin tree,
I might compare; but scarce the power
To tell you why belongs to me,

Save that her sunny presence wears
The radiant aspect of the South;
Long Summer days and Southern airs
Shine in her eyes, play round her mouth.

But you, to one another vowed,
Who lead the sacred life, apart
From the vain clamor of the crowd,
From the wild tumult of the heart,

In your own groves your emblems grow,
Walled round with silence everywhere,
And lifted from the world below
To healthier soil and purer air.

For thou, of eye and soul serene,
Seem'st, lady whom I most adore!
A mountain laurel, ever green,
Sprinkling the hills with Springtime o'er;

No matter whether Summer's drought
A look of withering Winter bring,
Or if December's blast be out,
Where thou art dwelling,—it is spring.

Thy sister is that modest, pale,
And sweetest nursling of the wood,
That men call lily of the vale
Because it dwells in lowly mood:

Under the laurel shade it grows,
Nestling itself so close thereby
That, when their blossoms fall, the snows
Of both together mingled lie:

And both in beauty seem so even,
That now I worship one, and now
Find in the other half my heaven:—
Guess, O my dearest, which art thou?