For as I saw thee, flower! My heart leaped forth
As if to welcome thee, and life itself
Stayed for a moment all its rushing tides,
To live within thy breath, and my soul drank
Thy beauty, like an old familiar thing.
For thou has filled some vacant measure up,
Of my deep yearnings for the immaculate!
These are the final lines of The Lily of the Nile from The Indian chamber, and other poems by Catherine Ann Ware Warfield (1816-1877) and Eleanor Percy Ware Lee (1819-1849). For more on the Percys, read The Literary Percys: Family History, Gender, and the Southern Imagination by Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Richard J. Milbauer Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida.
This week’s image ~ rt~ Blue Lily of the Nile.
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How beautiful!