The Secret Splendour

O the dew-dipped delicious drudgery

For red and blue and white and yellow pomps

Reigning with perfect petals over the dust!

Back bent, 1 serve them and on grateful knees

Touch with a mighty worship the frail kings.

One careless finger is their empire's doom—

Yet on my thoughts their pollen strews a blessing

And every breath of scent is a command;

For, each small tuft of quiet colour pricks

 A flawless hole in some enormous veil—

A light shoots up and lays bare all my flowers

Tiny and precarious by brief difficult

Thrusting of paradise through clods of clay!

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