Classic Poem

Under her gentle seeing,
In her delicate little hand,
They placed the Book of Being,
To read and understand.

The Book was mighty
Yea, worn and eaten with age;
Though the letters looked great and golden
She could not read a page.

The letters fluttered before her,
And all looked darkly wild:
Death saw her, and bent o'er her,
As she pouted her lips and smiled.

Then, weary a little with tracing
The Book, she look'd aside,
And lightly smiling, and placing
A Flower in its leaves, she died.

She died, but her sweetness fled not,
As fly the things of power, —
For the Book wherein she read not
Is the sweeter for the Flower.