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EASTER

I know the Summer fell asleep
Long weary months ago;
Heaped high above her grave I saw
The heavy winter snow;
Say, sparrow, then, what word you bring;
Is it her requiem you sing?

The meadow lark is mute, the wren
Forgets his late abode,
No throstle answering fluteth near,
Yet never prelude flowed
From ivied bosk or verdant slope
More brimming with delight and hope!

I, listening, seem to see the blooms
That were whilom so dear,
And voices loved and silent long
I, listening, seem to hear;
And longings in my breast confer,
And sweet, prophetic pulses stir.

“Thou lonely one,” they seem to say,
“Lost Summer shall return;

Wreathed in her shadowy tresses shall
The roses blissful burn;
Wan lilies at her feet shall lie,
And wind-flowers on her bosom sigh.

“Here, from this rough and lowly bed,
The little celandine
Shall lift her sunny glances to
The balmy eglantine;
And flags shall flaunt by yonder lake,
And fair Narcissus there awake.”

I know the Summer fell asleep
Long weary months ago;
But ah! all is not lost, poor heart,
That’s laid beneath the snow;
There wait, grown cold to care and strife,
Things costliest, dying into life:

All changes, but Life ceases not
With the suspended breath;
There is no bourne to Being, and
No permanence in Death;
Time flows to an eternal sea,
Space widens to Infinity!

Florence Earle Coates