New Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

O sweet for dying hands to hold
The earliest jonquil pale;
The breath is faint, the lips grow cold
As o'er the golden leaves they fold,
Their odour to inhale.

Sweet thus upon a flower to die,
And dream its whole life's dream,
Below the cold white roots to lie,
To feel the blossom shoot on high,
The slow sap gush and stream.

Its beauty comes from out of sight;
Perchance the spirit goes
To win that self-same clime whose light
Can make these petals warm and bright
Before their buds unclose.

Through death it comes; 'tis all we know,
Yet this should bring us gain,—
Since such delight from death can flow,
We need not shudder when we go
Where silence quiets pain.

Life hems us round on every side,
Like dim translucent stone;
Its carven walls and floors divide
The eternal spaces deep and wide
From our aerial cone.

But every year when spring is new
And tender grass is green,
The heavy-scented flowers renew
The miracle of death shot through
By many a chink unseen.

Dumb messengers, whose only speech
Is their intense perfume,
Out of the infinite they reach
Some subtle mystery to teach
Of hope beyond the tomb.

Thus, when my mortal days are o'er,
May Death, no dreadful thing,
Break through the alabaster floor
And living spikenard on me pour
From yellow flowers in spring.