Poetical Remains of the Late Mrs Hemans/On the Datura Arborea

by Felicia Hemans

V.

ON THE DATURA ARBOREA.

Majestic plant! such fairy dreams as lie
Nursed, where the bee sucks in the cowslip's bell,
Are not thy train:—those flowers of vase-like swell,
Clear, large, with dewy moonlight fill'd from high,
And in their monumental purity
Serenely drooping, round thee seem to draw
Visions link'd strangely with that silent awe
Which broods o'er Sculpture's works—A meet ally
For those heroic forms, the simply grand,
Art thou: and worthy, carv'd by plastic hand,
Above some kingly poet's tomb to shine
In spotless marble; honouring one, whose strain
Soar'd upon wings of thought that knew no stain
Free through the starry heavens of truth divine.