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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TWO LIVES. PART 3: 4 by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

First Line: WHAT FLOWER HAS BEEN PLANTED ON HER GRAVE
Last Line: HAS WRIT THEM DOWN, WHOM NONE WILL ANSWER THEN.
Subject(s): GRAVES; TOMBS; TOMBSTONES;

What flower has been planted on her grave,
I wonder? By her sister? Rose or rue?
Who crops the grass? Or spring the violets blue,
Blue, white, and wilding? What great branches wave,
The pine or poplar, by the iron fence? --
(Was there a fence?) -- And have you set a stone,
With dates of coming hither, going hence,
And carved a name that ends as ends my own? --
And would you save a place for me thereunder,
Beside her? (Is the father's grave by hers,
Or by the dear, drowned mother's grave, I wonder?) . . .
O these my rhymes seem uncouth questioners --
When I bethink me 'tis a husband's pen
Has writ them down, whom none will answer then.



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