She was a flower -- fresh, fair and pure, and frail;
A lily in life's morning. God is sweet;
He reached His hand, there rose a mother's wail;
Her lily drooped: 'tis blooming at His feet.
Where are the flowers to crown the faded flower?
I want a garland for another grave;
And who will bring them from the dell and bower,
To crown what God hath taken, with what heaven gave?
As though ye heard my voice, ye heed my will;
Ye come with fairest flowers: give them to me,
To crown our Claudia. Love leads memory still,
To prove at graves love's immortality.
White Rose:
Her grave is not a grave; it is a shrine,
Where innocence reposes,
Bright over which God's stars must love to shine,
And where, when Winter closes,
Fair Spring shall come, and in her garland twine,
Just like this hand of mine,
The whitest of white roses.
Laurel:
I found it on a mountain slope,
The sunlight on its face;
It caught from clouds a smile of hope
That brightened all the place.
They wreathe with it the warrior's brow,
And crown the chieftain's head;
But the laurel's leaves love best to grace
The garland of the dead.
Wild Flower:
I would not live in a garden,
But far from the haunts of men;
Nature herself was my warden,
I lived in a lone little glen.
A wild flower out of the wildwood,
Too wild for even a name;
As strange and as simple as childhood,
And wayward, yet sweet all the same.
Pages:
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155