"Life is Good..." from Panthea by Oscar Wilde

From lower cells of waking life we pass
To full perfection; thus the world grows old:
We who are godlike now were once a mass	105
Of quivering purple flecked with bars of gold,
Unsentient or of joy or misery,
And tossed in terrible tangles of some wild and wind-swept sea.
This hot hard flame with which our bodies burn
Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil,	110
Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turn
To water-lilies; the brown fields men till
Will be more fruitful for our love to-night,
Nothing is lost in nature, all things live in Death’s despite.
The boy’s first kiss, the hyacinth’s first bell,	115
The man’s last passion, and the last red spear
That from the lily leaps, the asphodel
Which will not let its blossoms blow for fear
Of too much beauty, and the timid shame
Of the young bride-groom at his lover’s eyes,—these with the same	120
One sacrament are consecrate, the earth
Not we alone hath passions hymeneal,
The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth
At daybreak know a pleasure not less real
Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood	125
We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good. http://www.bartleby.com/143/52.html Panthea Poems.  1881. Oscar Wilde (1854–1900).