Unbosoming

The love that breeds

In my heart for thee!

As the iris is full, brimful of seeds,

And all that it flowered for among the reeds

Is packed in a thousand vermilion-beads

That push, and riot, and squeeze, and clip,

Till they burst the sides of the silver scrip,

And at last we see

What the bloom, with its tremulous, bowery fold

Of zephyr-petal at heart did hold:

So my breast is rent

With the burthen and strain of its great content;

For the summer of fragrance and sighs is dead,

The harvest-secret is burning red,

And I would give thee, after my kind,

The final issues of heart and mind.