Poems (Van Rensselaer)/The Seed and the Flower

by Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer

THE SEED AND THE FLOWER

I have forgotten why it was I laughed;     But well I knowIt was because, that idle day, I quaffed  Such brimming cups of merriment,  That many days an overflow  Ran in my finger-tips unspent.  And so it was I shaped arightSo gay a Scherzo as my Birch-trees in Sunlight.

I have forgotten why it was I wept;     But I rememberIt was because awhile my pulses kept  The beat of sorrow, that I found  For my Sonata, the December,  Those melodies of yearning sound  That were so beautiful, you said,I must have dreamed them in a dream where Kreisler played.

And surely, when that I am dead some day,     The procreant earth,Though all my music be forgot, will say,  "Here lies what was a tuneful heart,  And with its aid I brought to birth   This triumph of my spring-time art,  Where, to his nest that softly swings,The orchard-oriole in the blossoming cherry sings."

 For K.M.  1910.