Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE YELLOW CHRYSANTHEMUM, by JANET B. MONTGOMERY MCGOVERN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE YELLOW CHRYSANTHEMUM, by                    
First Line: The golden glory of its heart has entered in to mine
Last Line: Happiness such as I have never known is mine.
Subject(s): Chrysanthemums; Flowers


THE golden glory of its heart has entered into mine;
This wondrous perfect flower.
It has survived the blighting frost
That cruelly has killed all others of its kind.
The wind is cold, the sky is grey.
But this yellow flower makes bright
My brown and sodden garden.
So in my heart brightly burns the flame of joy
In this the chrysanthemum season of my life.
It warms the sodden garden of my soul
The flame of joy that love has lighted
For this child not mine,
But my lord's and another woman's.
When first he brought the boy—a babe—to our home,
Saying that here he must live, to be trained as was fitting a nobleman's heir,
Since the Gods had denied to me, his wife, a son,
My heart was as the sodden soil of the garden, here,
And a frost like that of yesternight
Froze my heart within me, turning all black
As the frost has turned my flowers.
Because I came of a Samurai race I could not cry out,
But could only bow before my lord, and smile.
His wish was my law, I said, his son should be as my own.
Nor did the child lack care.
But because my soul is evil, I did not love him. I wished him dead.
That wish, I think, brought the illness.
Then with loathing I knew my own soul; knew its foulness;
But the child did not. In his pain he held out his arms to me,
Begging that I would soothe. Then my heart was opened.
Love, such as I did not know that the heart of a woman
Could hold for a child, filled me,
As a temple on feast days is filled
With incense, fragrant and warming.
And because the gods are good, Amida and Kwannon,
My prayers are answered. The boy is better,
To-day he walks with me in the garden. I pluck for him this golden flower.
In the chrysanthemum time of my life
Happiness such as I have never known is mine.





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