The heavy apple-trees
Are shaking off their snow in breezy play;
The frail anemones
Have fallen, fading, from the lap of May;
Lanterned with white the chestnut-branches wave,
And all the woods are gay.
Come, children, come away,
And we will make a flower-bed to-day
About our dear one's grave!
Oh, if we could but tell the wild-flowers where
Lies his dear head, gloried with sunny hair,
So noble and so fair,
How would they haste to bloom and weep above
The heart that loved them with so fond a love!
Come, children, come!
From the sweet, ferny meads,
Wherein he used to walk in days of yore,--
From the green path that leads,
Where the long dusty road seems wearisome,
Up to his father's door,--
Gather the tender shoots
Of budding promise, fragrance, and delight,
Fresh-sprouting violet-roots,
That, when the first June night
Shall draw about his bed its fragrant gloom,
This grave-mound may be bathed in balmy bloom,
With loving memories eloquently dumb.
Come, children, come!
No more, alas, alas!
O fairest blossoms which the wild bee sips,
Along your pleasant places shall he pass,
Ere from your freshened leaves the night-dew drips,
Culling your blooms in handfuls from the grass,
Pressing your tender faces to his lips,--
Ah, never any more!
Yet I recall, a little while before
He passed behind this mystery of death,
How, bringing home great handfuls, won away
From the dark wood-haunts where he loved to stray
Until his dewy garments were replete
With wafts of odorous breath,
With sods all mossy-sweet
And all awake and purple with new bloom
He filled and crowded every window-seat,
Until each pleasant room
Was fragrant with your mystical perfume:
Now vainly do I watch beside the door,--
Ah, never any more!
Alas, how could I know
That I so soon should strew
Your blossoms, warm with tears, above his head?
That your wet roots would cling
About the hand that wears his bridal ring,
When he who placed it there lay cold and dead?
O violets, live and grow,
That, ere the bright days go,
This turf may be with rarest beauty crowned!--
Nay, shrink not from my touch,
For these are careful and most loving hands,
Fearing and hoping much,
Which thus disturb your fair and wondering bands,
But to transfer them to more holy ground.
Dear violets, bloom and live!
To this beloved tomb
Your beauty and your bloom
Are the most precious tribute we can give.
And, oh, if your sweet soul of odor goes,
Blended with the clear trills of singing-birds,
Farther than my poor speech
Or wailing cry can reach
Into that realm of shadowy repose
Toward which I blindly yearn,
Praying in silence, "Oh, my love, return!"
Yet dare not try to touch with groping words,
So far it seems, and sweet,--
That realm wherein I may not hope to be
Until my wayworn feet
Put off the shoes of this mortality,--
Oh, let your incense-breath,
Laden with all this weight of love and woe
For him who went away so long ago,
Bridge for me Time and Death!
Blow, violets, blow!
And tell him in your blooming, o'er and o'er,
How in the places which he used to know
His name is still breathed fondly as of yore;
Tell him how often, in the dear old ways
Where bloomed our yesterdays,
The radiant days which I shall find no more,
My lingering footsteps shake
The dew-drops from your leaves, for his dear sake.
Wake, blue eyes, wake!
The earliest breath of June
Blows the white tassels from the cherry-boughs,
And in the deepest shadow of the noon
The mild-eyed oxen browse.
How tranquilly he sleeps,
He, whom so bitterly we mourn as dead!--
Although the new month sweeps
The over-blossomed spring-flower from his bed,
Giving fresh buds therefor,--
Although beside him still Love waits and weeps,
And yonder goes the war.
Wake, violets, wake!
Open your blue eyes wide!
Watch faithfully his lonely pillow here;
Let no rude foot-fall break
Your slender stems, nor crush your leaves aside;
See that no harm comes near
The dust to me so dear;--
O violets, hear!
The clouds hang low and heavy with warm rain,--
And when I come again,
Lo, with your blossoms his loved grave shall be
Blue as the marvellous sea
Laving the borders of his Italy!