| |
| BRING no jarring lute this way | |
| To demean her sepulchre, | |
| Toys of love and idle day | |
| Vanish as we think of her. | |
| We, who read her epitaph, | 5 |
| Find the world not worth a laugh. | |
| |
| Light, our light, what dusty night | |
| Numbs the golden drowsy head? | |
| Lo! empath’d in pearls of light, | |
| Morn resurgent from the dead; | 10 |
| From whose amber shoulders flow | |
| Shroud and sheet of cloudy woe. | |
| |
| Woods are dreaming, and she dreams: | |
| Through the foliaged roof above | |
| Down immeasurably streams | 15 |
| Splendor like an angel’s love, | |
| Till the tomb and gleaming urn | |
| In a mist of glory burn. | |
| |
| Cedars there in outspread palls | |
| Lean their rigid canopies; | 20 |
| Yet a lark note through them falls, | |
| As he scales his orient skies. | |
| That aërial song of his, | |
| Sweet, might come from thee in bliss. | |
| |
| There the roses pine and weep | 25 |
| Strong, delicious human tears; | |
| There the posies o’er her sleep | |
| Through the years—ah! through the years: | |
| Spring on spring renew the show | |
| Of their frail memorial woe. | 30 |
| |
| Wreaths of intertwisted yew | |
| Lay for cypress where she lies, | |
| Mingle perfume from the blue | |
| Of the forest violet’eyes. | |
| Let the squirrel sleek its fur, | 35 |
| And the primrose peep at her. | |
| |
| We have seen three winters sow | |
| Hoarfrost on thy winding-sheet: | |
| Snows return again, and thou | |
| Hearest not the crisping sleet. | 40 |
| Winds arise and winds depart, | |
| Yet no tempest rocks thy heart. | |
| |
| We have seen with fiery tongue | |
| Thrice the infant crocus born: | |
| Thrice its trembling curtain hung | 45 |
| In a chink of frozen morn. | |
| This can rear its silken crest: | |
| Nothing thaws her ice-bound breast. | |
| |
| We have eaten, we have earn’d | |
| Wine of grief and bread of care, | 50 |
| We, who saw her first inurn’d | |
| In the dust and silence there. | |
| We have wept—ah God! not so: | |
| Trivial tears dried long ago. | |
| |
| But we yearn and make our moan | 55 |
| For the step we us’d to know: | |
| Gentle hand and tender tone, | |
| Laughter in a silver flow: | |
| All that sweetness in thy chain, | |
| Tyrant Grave, restore again. | 60 |
| |
| Bring again the maid who died: | |
| We have wither’d since she went. | |
| O unseal the shadowy side | |
| Of her marble monument; | |
| Earth, disclose her as she lies | 65 |
| Doz’d with woodland lullabies. | |
| |
