How passionately it opens after rain,
And O, how like a prayer
To those great shining skies! Do they disdain
A bride so small and fair?
See the imploring petals, how they part
And utterly lay bare
The perishing treasures of that piteous heart
In wild surrender there.
What? Would'st _thou_, too, drink up the Eternal bliss,
Ecstatically dare,
O, little bride of God, to invoke _His_ kiss?--
But O, how like a prayer!