Classic Poem

PART THIRD

Lenora looketh listlessly adown the garden walk.
" I am weary, oh! my mother, of thy tender talk;
" I am weary of the trees, moving to and fro,
" The fixed stars above, the running streams below.
" All things are the same but I, and only I, am dreary;
" And mother of my dreariness, I am very weary.
" Mother, brother, pull the flowers I planted in the spring,
" Smiling that I should smile the more upon their gathering!
" The bees will find them other flowers , oh! pull them, dearest mine,
" And carry them and carry me before St. Agnes' Shrine! "
Thereat they pulled the summer flowers she planted in the spring
And her and them all mournfully to Agnes' Shrine they bring.

She looked up to the pictured saint and twice she shook her head.
" Alas it is too calm for me, too calm for me, " she said;
" The little flowers we brought with us before it we may lay,
" Those being used to look at heaven; but I must look away,
" For never sinner, I'm convinced, can dare or bear to gaze
" On God or angel's holiness, except in Jesu's face. "

Then passionate her language came. " Dear Jesus, can it be?
" Wait we till all things go from us or e'er we go to thee?
" Aye, sooth we feel such strength in weal, thy love may seem withstood,
" But what are we in agony? Dumb if we cry not " God". "
Her mother could not speak for tears; she ever mused thus:
The bees will find them other flowers , Oh! what is left for us?

But her young brother stayed his sobs and knelt beside her knee
" Thou sweetest sister in the world, hast ne'er a word for me? "
She passed her hand across his face, she passed it o'er his cheek
So tenderly, so tenderly, she needed not to speak.

The wreath which lay on shrine that day
At vespers bloomed no more,
The woman fair who placed it there
Had died an hour before.

Both perished mute, for lack of root
Earth's nourishment to reach.
Oh reader! breathe (the ballad saith)
Some fragrance out of each.