  SENT IN A TINY BOX.Let them lie—ah, let them lie! Plucked flowers—dead to-morrow; Lift the lid up quietly, As you'd lift the mystery Of a buried sorrow. Let them lie—the fragrant things, All their souls thus giving; Let no breeze's ambient wings And no useless water-springs Mock them into living. They have lived—they live no more; Nothing can requite them For the gentle life they bore, And up-yielded in full store While it did delight them. Yet, I ween, flower-corses fair! 'Twas a joyful yielding, Like some soul heroic, rare, That leaps bodiless forth in air For its loved one's shielding. Surely, ye were glad to die In the hand that slew ye, Glad to leave the open sky, And the airs that wandered by, And the bees that knew ye; Giving up a small earth-place And a day of blooming, Here to lie in narrow space, Smiling in this smileless face With such sweet perfuming. O ye little violets dead! Coffined from all gazes, We will also smile, and shed Out of heart-flowers withered Perfume of sweet praises. And as ye, for this poor sake, Love with life are buying, So, I doubt not, One will make All our gathered flowers to take Richer scent through dying. |
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