Poetry Archives

Oh bud and leaf and blossom,
  How beautiful they are!
Than last year’s vernal season
  ’Tis lovelier by far;
This earth was never so enchanting
  Nor half so bright before—
But so I’ve rhapsodized, in springtime,
  For forty years or more.

What luxury of color
  On shrub and plant and vine,
From pansies’ richest purple
  To pink of eglantine;
From buttercups to “johnny-jump-ups,”
  With deep cerulean eyes,
Responding to their modest surname
  In violet surprise.

Sometimes I think the sunlight
  That gilds the emerald hills,
And makes Aladdin dwellings
  Of dingy domiciles,
Is surplus beauty overflowing
  That Heaven cannot hold—
The topaz glitter, or the jacinth,
  The glare of streets of gold.

In “Cedar Hill,” the city
  Of “low green tents” of sod,
I read the solemn record
  Of those gone home to God;
While from their hallowed dust arising
  The fragrant lilies grow
As if their life was all the sweeter
  For those who sleep below.

And so ’tis not in sadness
  I dwell upon the thought,
When I am dead and buried
  That I shall be forgot.
Because the germ of reproduction
  Doth this poor body hold,
Perchance to add to nature’s beauty
  A rose above the mold.