Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO A WILD ROSE ON A INDIAN GRAVE, by JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO A WILD ROSE ON A INDIAN GRAVE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In the pasture where the grasses are the first to / herald spring
Last Line: The good shall live forever, and the pure shall never die.
Subject(s): Cherokee Indians; Flowers; Legends; Roses


IN the pasture where the grasses are the first to herald spring,
And the meadow lark flits upward on his parachutal wing,
Where the wild vines weave their netting and the wild winds wander free,
Thou art blooming in thy beauty now, sweet rose of Cherokee.

All around thee there is freedom, part and parcel of thy life,
Untutored is thy every grace with native sweetness rife.
The spirit of the maiden whom the Choctaw chieftain stole—
Thou sprangest from her lonely grave, the rose-bud of her soul.

Didst thou weave those golden leaflets, 'mid the centuries long gone by,
In the loom of Indian summer with the shuttles of the sky?
And that rare and dainty perfume, circling lambent of thy birth?—
'Tis the infant breath of nature in the May-day of the earth.

In those rows of yellow pistils, platoon-formed, with spears of stars,
Didst thou pilfer from the lark's breast while he sang his sweetest bars?
And that blush of faintest crimson, tingeing soft thy petal's peak?
'Tis the red bird's mirrored plumage in the dew-drop on thy cheek.

In those drooping, twining branches, bending low in jeweled bloom,
Thou but weavest wreaths of beauty for the sleep of Beauty's tomb,
And that snowy, clust'ring garland springing up-ward and above—
'Tis the risen soul of virtue in the robes of virtue's love.

Ah! 'tis many circling seasons since thou first bloomed o'er the mound,
Where the Indian maiden slumbered and the wild fawn wander'd round;
Since thou heardst the Spanish bugle, saw De Soto's steel-clad lines
As they trampled in their armor o'er thy timid, clinging vines.

But through all those changing seasons thou hast reared thy modest head—
Nature's shaft of living marble o'er the ashes of thy dead,
Teaching all the world a lesson, older than the spangled sky—
The good shall live forever, and the pure shall never die.





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