Lavender

Anonymous

HOW prone we are to hide and hoard

Each little treasure time has stored,

To tell of happy hours!

We lay aside with tender care

A tattered book, a lock of hair,

A bunch of faded flowers.

When death has led with silent hand

Our darlings to the “Silent Land,”

Awhile we sit bereft;

But time goes on; anon we rise,

Our dead are buried from our eyes,

We gather what is left.

The books they loved, the songs they sang,

The little flute whose music rang

So cheerily of old;

The pictures we had watched them paint,

The last plucked flower, with odor faint,

That fell from fingers cold.

We smooth and fold with reverent care

The robes they living used to wear;

And painful pulses stir

As o’er the relics of our dead,

With bitter rain of tears, we spread

Pale purple lavender.

And when we come in after years,

With only tender April tears

On cheeks once white with care,

To look on treasures put away

Despairing on that far-off day,

A subtile scent is there.

Dew-wet and fresh we gather them,

These fragrant flowers; now every stem

Is bare of all its bloom:

Tear-wet and sweet we strewed them here

To lend our relics, sacred, dear,

Their beautiful perfume.

The scent abides on book and lute,

On curl and flower, and with its mute

But eloquent appeal

It wins from us a deeper sob

For our lost dead, a sharper throb

Than we are wont to feel.

It whispers of the “long ago;”

Its love, its loss, its aching woe,

And buried sorrows stir;

And tears like those we shed of old

Roll down our cheeks as we behold

Our faded lavender.

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