The Watchers
We must be nobler for our dead, be sure,
Than for the quick. We might their living eyes
Deceive with gloss of seeming; but all lies
Were vain to cheat a prescience spirit-pure.
Our soul's true worth and aim, however poor,
They see who watch us from some deathless skies
With glance death-quickened. That no sad surprise
Sting them in seeing, be ours to secure.
Living, our loved ones make us what they dream;
Dead, if they see, they know us as we are.
Henceforward we must be, not merely seem.
Bitterer woe than death it were by far
To fail their hopes who love us to redeem;
Loss were thrice loss that thus their faith should mar.
A Lover's Messengers
The earliest flowers of spring
To thee, beloved, I bring:
Anemone and graceful adder's-tongue,
With golden cowslips, yellow as the sun
And fresh as brooks by which they sprung;
Sweet violets that we love; and, one by one,
The blossoms that come after,-cherry blossom
And snow of shad-bush, willful columbine
In pale red raiment, and the milky stars
Of chickweed-wintergreen; slim walnut buds
In satin sheen, and furry curling ferns,
Like owlets half awake; with floods
Of alder tassels that dropp dust of gold
On the dark pools where, 'twixt the bars
Of piercing sunbeams, speckled troutlings dart.
And thus until the jocund year is old
And frosts spin cerements, white and chill,
O'er all the woodlands, fold on fold,
I tell the days with flowers, to mind thee still
Who, kind to blossoms, to me cruel art,
How swift is time, how constant is my heart.
