Classic Poem

Close on the bat-crossed hour
I waited for a flower
By light grown visible
Burning the vivid hill.

Pimpernel in night-bud
Showed like small drops of blood;
It was no common flower
I kept late vigil for.

I watched by falling light
Till I saw how with white
And patient petals shone
Night-flowering campion.

So white those petals showed
And such a rich scent flowed,
I said, ‘Are we not one,
I and this campion?’

Seeing how for us both
Sweetness followed on sloth
I felt my own song's power
In that night-flowering flower.

But when I came that way
In the clear light of day
I noticed a mean plant
Sticky and small and scant.