Explore "To a Wind-Flower" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I. Teach me the secret of thy loveliness, / That, being made wise, I may aspire to be / As beautiful in thought, and so express / Immortal truths to earth's mortality; / Though to my soul ability be less / Than 't is to thee, O sweet anemone.
II. Teach me the secret of thy innocence, / That in simplicity I may grow wise; / Asking from Art no other recompense / Than the approval of her own just eyes; / So may I rise to some fair eminence, / Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies.
III. Teach me these things; through whose high knowledge, I, -- / When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins, / And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie / In that vast house, common to serfs and Thanes, -- / I shall not die, I shall not utterly die, / For beauty born of beauty -- _that_ remains.