I saw the lily pale and perfect grow
Amid its silent sisters in the mead.
Methought within its chilly depth to read
A maidenly severity, as though
A cool young life lay slumbering in the snow
Of its frail substance. In that chalice white,
Whose fairy texture shone against the light,
An unwakened pulse beat faint and slow.
And I remembered, love, thy coy disdain,
When thou my love for thee hadst first divined;
Thy proud, shy tenderness,—too proud to feign
That willful blindness which is yet not blind.
Then toward the sun thy lily-life I turned,—
With sudden splendor flushed its chalice burned.