Here was a happy flower, Born in sun and shower, In the meadow; Sorrow was her dower, And shadow.
Bid the gentle mole Dig his deepest hole, For her rest; Sleep has charmed her soul, Sleep is best.
Bid the vervain spire Light the funeral fire, And the yarrow Build a shady choir, For the sparrow.
Bid him chirp and cry, “Everything must die, She is dead,” Now in exequy, All is said.
When we grow old, and time looks like a thief, That was the spendthrift of our dearest days; When color mingles merged in silvered grays; When joys are ever memoried to be brief; When beauty fades; when hope is under feof; When all our moods are mantled in a haze; When sprightly pleasure for a penance plays The part of prudence in the weeds of grief; It will suffice if unto memory Visit the voices and the eager grace Of days that promised never to forget; If they will flow like rumors of the sea, Heard under honied lindens in the place, Where start the marguerite and the mignonette.
Her life was touched with early frost, About the April of her day, Her hold on earth was lightly lost, And like a leaf she went away.
Her soul was chartered for great deeds, For gentle war unwonted here: Her spirit sought her clearer needs, An Empyrean atmosphere.
At hush of eve we hear her still Say with her clear, her perfect smile, And with her silver-throated thrill: “A little while—a little while.”
March wind rough Clashed the trees, Flung the snow; Breaking stones, In the cold, Germans slow Toiled and toiled; Arrowy sun Glanced and sprang, One right blithe German sang: Songs of home, Fatherland: Syenite hard, Weary lot, Callous hand, All forgot: Hammers pound, Ringing round; Rise the heaps, To his voice, Bounds and leaps Toise on toise: Toil is long, But dear God Gives us song, At the end, Gives us rest, Toil is best.
When the great day is done, That seems so long, So full of fret and fun, Our little girl is in her cradle laid: She takes the soft dark-petaled flower of sleep Between her fragile hands, Striving to pluck it: And as the dream-roots slowly part, She is not in possession of the lands, Where flowered her tender heart, Nor in this turmoil dire of cark and strife, Which we call life, The which, husbanding all our art, We will keep veiled until the latest day, And from her wrapt away: Then when the drowsy flower Has parted from the dreamful mead, And in her palm lies plucked indeed, When her dear breathing steadies after sighs, And the soft lids have clouded the blue eyes, A tiny hand falls on my cheek— Lightly and so fragrantly As if a snow-flake could a rose-leaf be— And in the dark touches a tear Which has sprung clear, From eyes unconscious of their own distress, At the deep pathos of such tender helplessness. And then she claims her sleep, As if she knows my love and trusts it deep.