I AM the flowers of yesterday. | |
| I have drunk of my last dew. | |
| Young maidens sang at my death | |
| And the moon sees me laid | |
| In my dewy shroud. | 5 |
| |
| And yesterday’s flowers, which yet live in me, | |
| Have given place to flowers of to-morrow. | |
| And the young girls who sang at my death,— | |
| Youth is the time for singing,— | |
| Must needs themselves give way | 10 |
| To maidens following after. | |
| And as my soul, so their soul too, | |
| Laden with fragrance, will remain. | |
| But to-morrow’s maidens never will know | |
| That I did blossom once. | 15 |
| |
| They will gaze upon other flowers; | |
| But my sweetly-scented soul | |
| Will recall to the minds of women | |
| The days when they were young. | |
| And they will regret that they sang as I died. | 20 |
| I bear with me also the sorrow of butterflies, | |
| The sun’s remembrance, | |
| And the murmurs of spring. | |
| |
| My fragrance is sweet as a child’s first word, | |
| My essence is drawn from the fecund earth: | 25 |
| It will long outlive my life. | |
| I say to the flowers of to-morrow, born of my roots, | |
| Love the sun as we have loved: | |
| Love all lovers and the birds, | |
| So when they see you bloom afresh | 30 |
| They will not think upon my death, | |
| But always dream these are the self-same flowers | |
| Even as the sun, who thinks he always sees | |
| The same flowers and birds upon the earth, | |
| Because he is immortal, | 35 |
| And never thinks of death. | |
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