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Experiences

By Katharine Tynan

Tynan, Katharine (1861-1931)

PLANTING BULBS.

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Setting my bulbs arow
In cold earth under the grasses,
Till the frost and the snow
Are gone and the Winter passes—

Sudden a foot-fall light,
Sudden a bird-call ringing;
And these in gold and in white
Shall rise with a sound of winging;

Airy and delicate all,
All go trooping and dancing
At Spring's call and footfall,
Airily dancing, advancing.

In the dark of the year,
Turning the earth so chilly,
I look to the day of cheer,
Primrose and daffodilly.

Turning the sods and the clay
I think on the poor sad people
Hiding their dead away
In the churchyard, under the steeple.

All poor women and men,
Broken-hearted and weeping,
Their dead they call on in vain,
Quietly smiling and sleeping.

Friends, now listen and hear,
Give over crying and grieving,
There shall come a day and a year
When the dead shall be as the living.

There shall come a call, a foot-fall,
And the golden trumpeters blowing
Shall stir the dead with their call,
Bid them be rising and going.

Then in the daffodil weather
Lover shall run to lover;
Friends all trooping together;
Death and Winter be over.

Laying my bulbs in the dark,
Visions have I of hereafter.
Lip to lip, breast to breast, hark!
No more weeping, but laughter!