Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen - The Lily lyrics

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.