How Wonderful is Love!

How wonderful is love!More wonderful, I wis,Than cherry-blossoms are when spring's first kissWarms the chill breast of earth,And gives new birthTo beauty! High aboveAll miracles—the miracle of love,Which by its own glad and triumphant powerBrings life to flower.Oh, love is wonderful!More wonderful than is the dew-fed roseWhose petals half unclose,In welcome of the light,When first the Dawn comes robed in vesture coolOf fragrant, shimmering white!—More wonderful and strangeThan moonrise, which doth changeDulness to glory—Yea, with a touch transforms the mountains hoary,And fills the darkling rills with living silver bright!

Not music when it wingsFrom the far azure where the skylark singsIs wonderful as love!—Not music when it wellsFrom the enchanted fairy-haunted dellsWhere, shrined mid thorn and vine—An ecstasy apart,Drawn from the life-blood of a yearning heart—The nightingale pours forth foreverThe rapture and the pain, that naught can sever,Of love which mortal is, yet knows itself divine!