Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FLOWERETS, by ACHILLE PAYSANT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FLOWERETS, by                    
First Line: Think not I could forget your graces fallen asleep
Last Line: His tomb.
Subject(s): Death; Flowers; Love; Night; Youth; Dead, The; Bedtime


THINK not I could forget your graces fallen asleep,
O flowers for whom I weep
Late showers.
Your care-beguiling breath enveloped easeful hues
That blent my tears with dews,
O flowers!

How lush the memory still of beds ablaze with white,
Where dreams to life and light
Upgrew;
Where in your blossoming arms the April snow's bright chill
Veiled with a rosy thrill
Heaven's blue.

To gardens all forgot my failing feet are drawn,
Flowers of my love and dawn,
Though I
No more in youthful dreams my troubles may unlade,
Beneath the lilacs' shade
To lie.

O iris, still I see your sapphire sprent with milk,
Reflected on the silk
Of springs,
And nodding 'neath the whir of gaudy dragon-flies,
Trembling as birds that rise
On wings.

And on the lakes unfold the vermeil nenuphars
As barques that bear the stars.
Serene,
Bright hyacinths on lawns, with lilies of the vale
And violets regale
Earth's green.

Where honey-suckle's soul and breath of elder trees
Float over leafy leas,
No choice
The passer-by can have, whenas this bourne appears,
Who in the silence hears
The voice.

In spring your hearts will pulse, O virgin hawthorn-buds,
And lave the hills with floods
Of flowers;
You who, when wounded, bleed with subtle scent, O friends,
And bless the hand which rends
Your bowers.

And you whom Summer strews: forget-me-not and thyme,
Fresh jewels of the prime,
I see,
Nuns of the lowly meads that have not even a name,
You too a tear can claim
From me.

Although my heart's spent stream now trickles in its course
And Age has dried the source
Of song,
O poets' solacers, your mysteries and charms,
Your censered nards and balms
Still throng.

But now the Autumn creeps down forest nave and aisle
And tints the woods erewhile
So green;
And, even while I look, the yellowing copses weep,
And Winter's legions sweep
The dene.

O chalices of gold, wherein the dawn distilled
For blackbirds matin-filled
Her pearls,
Farewell, sweet sisterhood, no voice your perfume brings;
No mystic world of wings
Unfurls.

Together now we tread the misty twilight's floor,
Where Hope has gone before.
Bereft
Of love and loveliness, and filched of all we wrought,
Save melancholy, naught
Is left.

Yet ere your last you breathe, one boon, one boon essay
In night still full of day.
Above
My feebleness and fears waft now your words as wine,
Your homily divine
Of love.

O sisters low in death, by hail and heat assailed,
Why have you never quailed?
Ah, why
Can you in these last throes here in the twilight dim
Exhale an odorous hymn
And die?

Ah, wherefore? Is it not: for you there is no death,
Since life but slumbereth
Awhile,
And evermore for you Death doth the gates unbar
To liberate the star,
The smile?

With yours, Man's heart is ware of life's eternal spring;
He has not bade the wing
Farewell.
His spirit, having shed its fleshly dormancy,
Shall soar to God, as ye
Foretell.

When I shall be no more, steal o'er the leas and lawns
And mingle with the dawn's
First showers.
Come back to call from sleep the ashes Love defends,
O all-beloved friends,
O flowers!

So shall your minstrel die not as the wights that mourn,
Or such as file forlorn
The gloom,
If, when Night lays him low, Dawn shall the murk outbrave
And bring your floods to lave
His tomb.





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