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POEMS.
So full of birds and songs before.
Whole tribes of yellow butterflies
Dart mockingly and wheel and soar,
Making it only seem the more
Impossible, this human death which lies
Silent beneath their dance who live
One day and die. Noiseless and swift,
Winged seeds come through the air, and drift
Down on the dead man's breast.
They shall go with him into rest,
And in the resurrection of the Spring
To his low grave shall give
The beauty of some green and flowering thing.
Whole tribes of yellow butterflies
Dart mockingly and wheel and soar,
Making it only seem the more
Impossible, this human death which lies
Silent beneath their dance who live
One day and die. Noiseless and swift,
Winged seeds come through the air, and drift
Down on the dead man's breast.
They shall go with him into rest,
And in the resurrection of the Spring
To his low grave shall give
The beauty of some green and flowering thing.
V.
The glittering sun moves slowly overhead,
It seems in rhythmic motion with our tread,
Confronting us with its relentless, hot,
Unswerving, blinding ray;
Then, sparing not
One subtle torture, it makes haste to lay
A ghastly shadow all along the way
Of formless, soundless wheel and lifeless plume,
All empty shapes in semblance of our gloom,
Creeping along at our slow pace,
Not for one moment nor in any place
Forsaking us, nor ceasing to repeat
In taunting lines the faltering of our feet;
Laying, lifting, in a mocking breath,
Mocking shadows of the shadow of Death.
It seems in rhythmic motion with our tread,
Confronting us with its relentless, hot,
Unswerving, blinding ray;
Then, sparing not
One subtle torture, it makes haste to lay
A ghastly shadow all along the way
Of formless, soundless wheel and lifeless plume,
All empty shapes in semblance of our gloom,
Creeping along at our slow pace,
Not for one moment nor in any place
Forsaking us, nor ceasing to repeat
In taunting lines the faltering of our feet;
Laying, lifting, in a mocking breath,
Mocking shadows of the shadow of Death.
