The speaker watches a nasturtium, addressing it as “Flame-flower” and “Day-torch,” and imagines it as dangerous beauty: a bee dives into its blazing center and seems torn apart, while a hummingbird flees in alarm. The flower’s bright, almost violent allure becomes a way of thinking about desire itself. Then he turns to a woman he loves, saying the nasturtium is “born in vain” beside her. Her hair glows like the setting sun, her eyes rise like a star, and her hands are like brown lilies. The comparison shifts from playful admiration to deep longing and memory: he once felt the same “furies” beating in her fiery heart. The mood is lush, heated, and slightly ominous—full of beauty that attracts and threatens at once.
Lines to a Nasturtium — Summary
(A lover muses)
Flame-flower, Day-torch, Mauna Loa, I saw a daring bee, today, pause, and soar, Into your flaming heart; Then did I hear crisp, crinkled laughter As the furies after tore him apart? A bird, next, small and humming, Looked into your startled depths and fled.... Surely, some dread sight, and dafter Than human eyes as mine can see, Set the stricken air waves drumming In his flight.
Day-torch, Flame-flower, cool-hot Beauty, I cannot see, I cannot hear your flutey Voice lure your loving swain, But I know one other to whom you are in beauty Born in vain: Hair like the setting sun, Her eyes a rising star, Motions gracious as reeds by Babylon, bar All your competing; Hands like, how like, brown lilies sweet, Cloth of gold were fair enough to touch her feet ... Ah, how the sense floods at my repeating, As once in her fire-lit heart I felt the furies Beating, beating.