| |
I OF all the flowers rising now, | |
| Thou only saw’st the head | |
| Of that unopen’d drop of snow | |
| I placed beside thy bed. | |
| |
| In all the blooms that blow so fast, | 5 |
| Thou hast no further part, | |
| Save those, the hour I saw thee last, | |
| I laid above thy heart. | |
| |
| Two snowdrops for our boy and girl, | |
| A primrose blown for me, | 10 |
| Wreathed with one often-play’d-with curl | |
| From each bright head for thee. | |
| |
| And so I graced thee for thy grave, | |
| And made these tokens fast | |
| With that old silver heart I gave, | 15 |
| My first gift—and my last. | |
| |
II I dream’d, her babe upon her breast, | |
| Here she might lie and calmly rest | |
| Her happy eyes on that far hill | |
| That backs the landscape fresh and still. | 20 |
| |
| I hoped her thoughts would thrid the boughs | |
| Where careless birds of love carouse, | |
| And gaze those apple-blossoms through | |
| To revel in the boundless blue. | |
| |
| But now her faculty of sight | 25 |
| Is elder sister to the light, | |
| And travels free and unconfined | |
| Through dense and rare, through form and mind. | |
| |
| Or else her life to be complete | |
| Hath found new channels full and meet— | 30 |
| Then, O, what eyes are leaning o’er, | |
| If fairer than they were before! | |
| |
