| |
| 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, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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; | 15 |
| 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; | 20 |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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. | 30 |
| |
| 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, | 35 |
| 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 | 40 |
| 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; | 45 |
| And tears like those we shed of old | |
| Roll down our cheeks as we behold | |
| Our faded lavender. | |
| |
