Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.
The FlowerGeorge Herbert (1593–1633)
(See full text.)
H
Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring;
To which, besides their own demean,
The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.
Grief melts away
Like snow in May,
As if there were no such cold thing.
Could have recovered greenness?
It was gone
Quite underground; as flowers depart
To see their mother root, when they have blown;
Where they together
All the hard weather,
Dead to the world, keep house unknown.
After so many deaths I live and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing: O my only light,
It cannot be
That I am he
On whom thy tempests fell all night.