Classic Poem

The flowers that died in spring-time are the dearest we remember,
They were fair and pure and holy, with the young life of the year;
The charm they had was childlike, and the manhood of September
Would forsake its living harvest if the dead ones might appear.

But sacrifice avails not when the blessing once has vanished,
The days grow ripe and autumn-houred, the blossoms are no more;
The garden is not Eden, for the Eden hearts are banished
Where vine and fig and olive furnish forth their kindly store.

Repining will not bring them, they return no more for praying,
And the dew of tears will draw them not to smile upon our ways;
Brown autumn strews the pathway where our memories go Maying
Through the backward-stretching vistas of the spring-begotten days.

O flowers that opened joyously, O buds that broke in weeping;
O children of the sunlight, of the kindred of the shower,
Still I love to think how human-like you wakened up from sleeping
When the hand of death was lifted, and the winter lost its power!

The Apostles gazing wide-eyed from the hillside of Ascension
Had company of angels on the sacred mountain slope,
And the flowers are all our angels, in their sweetness making mention
Of the better things to ponder than the failure of a hope.

" Why stand ye gazing idly on the firmament above you?
For a season though He left you will the dear Lord come again;
Go forward in your faith to those you love and those who love you,
And do service in His vineyard with the sunshine and the rain. "

So each one tells its message, whether blossoming or fading,
And I dwell on all their meanings till they speak in one pure word,
Then the eyesight needs no vision, and the spirit no persuading,
And love reaches to the utmost and the heart of life is stirred.

The roots of love strike deeper, and the stems of love climb straighter,
And the leaves of love spread glossier and take the breath of day,
The blossom breaks its sheathing and the fruitfulness comes later —
Love's plant of life springs green again and thrusts above the clay.

Ah! primrose, pale my primrose, that I folded in the pages
Where I spelled the holy verses in the years of long ago,
Your gold will tempt no miser though it fills the golden ages
In the valleys of our youth across the hills, beyond the snow.

I plucked you from the cluster long since perished on the wayside
But for sake of simple innocence the thought of you endures;
And I wonder, ah! my primrose, will one mourner by my clayside
Give any deed of mine the thought that simple worth secures.

Will any wreathe, as I have wreathed the daffodils deep golden,
To cast them on my coffin as I cast them once with tears
On his, the gentle-spirited, my friend's, by whom upholden
The name of old-time chivalry sprang newly to our ears.

Unpedigreed and patronless, but kingly-natured, clearly,
All spotless and reproachless, and in speech and spirit brave,
His fair name blooms behind him and the airs of memory dearly
Take the fragrance of the noble flowers of knighthood on his grave.

Ah! would it were the only grave where fondest flowers are rooted;
Ah! would it were the only spot where love in anguish cries;
How bitter-sweet the token of the claim that death disputed,
This solace of a snowdrop shining where our baby lies.

But the flowers return in spring-time, bearing all the selfsame sweetness,
And the spirits that we sorrow for, may they not come once more,
With all the old world's wisdom, and with purer-souled completeness,
Till the garden of humanity grows fairer than before!

Then violet, be fragrant still, and harebell, wave not vainly;
We need not fear the winter, and we will not chide the frost,
For I hear the voice of Nature, like a mother speaking plainly,
Saying " That which I have taken, do my children count it lost? "