Poems (Chitwood)/The Graves of the Flowers

by Mary Louisa Chitwood

THE GRAVES OF THE FLOWERS.

The woods are full of tiny graves,
 The sweet graves of the flowers,
That sprang in every sheltered nook,
 Amid the Spring-time hours.
The buttercup lies on the slope
 Where first the sunlight fell;
The violet sleeps beside the rill,
 The daisy in the dell.

Upon no stone is carved the name
 Of April's children fair;
They perished when the sky was bright,
 And gentle was the air.
To the soft kisses of the breeze
 They held, half trembling, up,
Full many a small transparent urn
 And honey-laden cup.

But when the roses budded out,
 In summer's balmy hours,
No little mound was made to tell
 Where slept the gentle flowers.
Those early flowers—they seem to me
 Like little children sweet,
Who smile a moment on our path,
 Then perish at our feet.

We know they can not linger, e'en
 In love's most fond embrace;
We see the mark of Paradise
 Meek shining from their face;
And soon their tiny graves are made,
 But years go circling by,
And not a stone can tell us where
 The little children lie.

But some are sleeping on the hill,
 Beneath the emerald grass,
Where gay birds soaring to the sky,
 Pause singing as they pass.
And many in the churchyard sleep,
 And many in the dell,
And many near the cottage homes
 Of those who loved them well.

Oh, many an Indian baby lies
 In forest old and grand;
Its rustic playthings fallen from
 The moldering little hand;
And flowers have sprung, and flowers have died,
 Upon its silent breast;—
Their nameless graves are side by side:
 None mark them as they rest.

Yet, in each grassy, humble mound,
 Where sleeping childhood lies,
A bud is bursting into bloom—
 A blossom for the skies.
But, ah! the flowers, the April flowers!
 Their graves are small and low;
We know they lie in woodland bowers,
 And more we can not know.