Pictures in Rhyme/Flower of the Flowers
FLOWER OF THE FLOWERS
A rose for each year—all white, none red;
Only white roses rest with this dead.
See how they cluster and cling round her head—
Thirty and three.
A rose in the coffin, a stroke on the bell,
Till thirty and three, three and thirty they tell—
Roses and bell.
Pick up yon rose—the one bud that has strayed—
Cast down the lid. Our last tribute is paid
To the infant, the child, the girl, and the maid,
Wife and mother.
Let her sleep in the bloom
Of the roses' perfume,
One flower with another.
All white, white, white,
Let them sleep through the night,
To the light.
From the earth was their birth;
On the earth grew they in beauty, burning
With whitest, purest flames,
To earth returning.
Then on the coffin-lid,
Neath which the sweet, still corpse of former happy hours,
Till morning lieth hid,
Write we her name of names:
'Flower of the flowers!'