Let's pause and take in a moment of summery, beautiful Chilean Neruda [1904-1973]--an excerpt from his "Poem: XVII", you can read the rest here. It calls to mind the famous flower line from Thomas Gray's 1751 "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard":
"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, /And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
The more poetry one has absorbed and loved, the greater the lines echo in the future. Here's the Neruda, from one of his famous pieces:
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body. [...]
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