Poems (Eckley)/Constancy

by Sophia May Eckley

For works with similar titles, see Constancy.

CONSTANCY. "Je meurs où je m'attache."

S twines the loving ivy round the tree,
 Her fibrous tendrils braiding, and green leaves
In polished masses, till the bark we see,
 Is almost buried with the weight it weaves—

So clings through life the truly loving heart,
 So intertwines its sympathies through death;
For death the chain may lengthen, never part,
 Nor is it feebly linked to struggling breath.

The ivy clasps the rugged bark, but see,
 The gardener puts his knife back in the sheath,
He knows he cannot part it from the tree,
 Save the tree perish, both consigned to death.

For mark how bedded every stalk and spray,
 And glitt'ring leaf, and sturdy stem embossed;
Thus with these human loves, so knit are they,
 If perish one, the other 's hopeless lost.