"I charge you, oh ye flowers fresh from the dead,
Declare if ye have seen him. You pale flowers
Why do you quake and hang the head like me?
"You pallid flowers, why do ye watch the dust
And tremble? Ah, you met him in your caves
And shrank out shuddering on the wintry air.
"Snowdrops, you need not gaze upon the ground,
Fear not. He will not follow ye; for then
I should be happy who am doomed to woe.
"Only I bid ye say that he is there,
That I may know my grief is to be borne
And all my fate is but the common lot."
She sat down on a bank of Primroses
Swayed to and fro, as in a wind of Thought
That moaned about her, murmuring alow,
"The common lot, oh for the common lot."
Thus spoke she, and behold a gust of grief
Smote her. As when at night the dreaming wind
Starts up enraged, and shakes the Trees and sleeps.
"Oh, early Rain, oh passion of strong crying,
Say dost thou weep, oh Rain, for him or me?
Alas, thou also goest to the Earth
And enterest as one brought home by fear.
"Rude with much woe, with expectation wild,
So dashest thou the doors and art not seen.
Whose burial did they speak of in the skies?
"I would that there were any grass-green grave
Where I might stand and say, 'Here lies my Love.'
And sigh, and look down to him, thro' the Earth,
And look up thro' the clearing skies, and smile."
Then the day passed from bearing up the Heavens
The sky descended on the Mountain-tops
Unclouded; and the stars embower'd the Night.