PLANTING BULBS
By Katherine Tynan
Setting my bulbs a-row
In cold earth under the grasses,
Till the frost and the snow
Are gone and the Winter passes—
Sudden a footfall light,
Sudden a bird-call ringing;
And these in gold and in white
Shall rise with a sound of winging.
Airy and delicate all,
All go trooping and dancing
At Spring’s call and footfall,
Airily dancing, advancing.
In the dark of the year,
Turning the earth so chilly,
I look to the day of cheer,
Primrose and daffodilly.
Turning the sods and the clay
I think on the poor sad people
Hiding their dead away
In the churchyard, under the steeple.
All poor women and men,
Broken-hearted and weeping,
Their dead they call on in vain,
Quietly smiling and sleeping.
Friends, now listen and hear,
Give over crying and grieving,
There shall come a day and a year
When the dead shall be as the living.
There shall come a call, a footfall,
And the golden trumpeters blowing
Shall stir the dead with their call,
Bid them be rising and going.
Then in the daffodil weather
Lover shall run to lover;
Friends all trooping together;
Death and Winter be over.
Laying my bulbs in the dark,
Visions have I of hereafter.
Lip to lip, breast to breast, hark!
No more weeping, but laughter!