Page:Ambarvalia - Clough (1849).djvu/15

 I give thee joy! O word of power! Believe, though slight the tie in sooth, When heart to heart its fountain opes The plant to water that with hopes Is budding for fruition's flower— The word, potential made, in truth Shall give thee joy!

Shall give thee joy! Oh, not in vain, For erring child the mother's prayer; The sigh, wherein a martyr's breath Exhales from ignominious death For some lost cause! In humbler strain Shall this poor word a virtue bear, And give thee joy!

panting sighs the bosom fill, And hands by chance united thrill At once with one delicious pain The pulses and the nerves of twain; When eyes that erst could meet with ease, Do seek, yet, seeking, shyly shun Extatic conscious unison,— The sure beginnings, say, be these,