Poems (Linn)/Night-Blooming Cereus
NIGHT-BLOOMING CEREUS.[1]
BRIDE of the Night, clad in such fitting robes! What is there in his silent, sombre mienTo win thee from the love of royal Day? Waxing and waning with his darkness, queenFit for the palace Helios rules on high, But smiling only when the silver moonUshers in Night and his attendant stars! Such bloom as thine seems meet for tropic Noon,Instead of Midnight's passionless repose.
What hast thou found in Nature's common soil—Whence blooms the sunflower, ever yellow-rayed—To make thee different from all others? spoil Worthy the bee, but by his appetite Unsullied—pure to be the Bride of Night.———
- ↑ Charlotte Fiske Bates has a quatrain containing the same idea. I believe mine, however, to be unborrowed.