Lay these hands down by my side,
Let my face be bare;
Bind a kerchief round the face,
Smooth my hair.
Let my bier be borne at dawn,
Summer grows so sweet,
Deep into the forest green
Where boughs meet.
Then pass away, and let me lie
One long, warm, sweet day
There alone, with face upturned,
One sweet day.
While the morning light grows broad,
While noon sleepeth sound,
While the evening falls and faints,
While the world goes round.
Edward Dowden
SONG
I made another garden, yea,
For my new Love.
I left the dead rose where it lay
And set the new above.
Why did my Summer not begin?
Why did my heart not haste?
My old Love came and walked therein
And laid the garden waste.
She entered with her weary smile,
Just as of old:
She looked around a little while
And shivered with the cold.
Her passing touch was death to all,
Her passing look a blight;
She made the white rose-petals fall,
And turned the red rose white.
Her pale robe clinging to the grass
Seemed like a snake
That bit the grass and ground, alas!
And a sad trail did make.
She went up slowly to the gate,
And then, just as of yore,
She turned back at the last to wait
And say farewell once more.
Arthur O'Shaughnessy