Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Love's Sudden Growth

  I.

  But yestermorn, with many a flower
      The garden of my heart was dress'd;
    A single tree has sprung to bloom,
    Whose branches cast a tender gloom,
      That shadows all the rest.

  II.

  A jealous and a tyrant tree,
      That seeks to reign alone;
    As if the wind's melodious sighs,
    The dews and sunshine of the skies,
      Were only made for One!

  III.

  A tree on which the Host of Dreams
      Low murmur mystic things,
    While hopes, those birds of other skies,
    To dreams themselves chant low replies--
      Ah, wherefore have they wings?

  IV.

  The seasons nurse the blight and storm,
      The glory leaves the air--
    The dreams and birds will pass away,
    The blossom wither from the spray--
      One day--the stem be bare--

  V.

  But mine has grown the Dryad's life,
      Coeval with the tree;
    The sun, the frost, the bloom, the fall,
    My fate, sweet tree, must share them all,
      To live and die with thee!