I Have a Message unto Thee

(Written in Sickness)

Green sprout the grasses,
Red blooms the mossy rose,
Blue nods the harebell
Where purple heather blows:
The water-lily, silver white,
Is living fair as light:

Sweet jasmine-branches trail
A dusky starry veil:
Each goodly is to see,
Comely in its degree:
I only I, alas that this should be,
Am ruinously pale.

New year renews the grasses,
The crimson rose renews,
Brings up the breezy bluebell,
Refreshes heath with dews:
Then water-lilies ever
Bud fresh upon the river:
Then jasmine lights its star
And spreads its arms afar:
I only in my spring
Can neither bud nor sing:
I find not honey but a sting
Though fair the blossoms are.

For me no downy grasses,
For me no blossoms pluck:
But leave them for the breezes,
For honey-bees to suck,
For childish hands to pull
And pile their baskets full:
I will not have a crown
That soon must be laid down:
Trust me : I cannot care
A withering crown to wear,
I who may be immortally made fair
Where autumn turns not brown.

Spring, summer, autumn,
Winter, all will pass,
With tender blossoms
And with fruitful grass.
Sweet days of yore
Will pass to come no more,
Sweet perfumes fly,
Buds languish and go by :
Oh bloom that cannot last,
Oh blossoms quite gone past,
I yet shall feast when you shall fast,
And live when you shall die.

Your work-day fully ended,
Your pleasant task being done,
You shall finish with the stars,
The moon and setting sun.
You and these and time
Shall end with the last chime,—
For earthly solace given,
But needed not in heaven;
Needed not perhaps
Through the eternal lapse.
Or else, all signs fulfilled,
What you foreshow may yield
Delights through heaven’s own harvest field
With undecaying saps.

Young girls wear flowers,
Young brides a flowery wreath:
But next we plant them
In garden-plots of death.
Whose sleep is best?—
The maiden’s curtained rest,
Or bride’s whose hoped-for sweet
May yet outstrip her feet?—
Ah what are such as these
To death’s sufficing ease ?
How long and deep that slumber is
Where night and morning meet!

Dear are the blossoms
For bride’s or maiden’s head,
But dearer planted
Around our happy dead.
Those mind us of decay
And joys that slip away :
These preach to us perfection
And endless resurrection.
We make our graveyards fair
For spirit-like birds of air :
For Angels, may be, finding there
Lost Eden’s own delection.

A blessing on the flowers
That God has made so good,
From crops of jealous gardens
To wildlings of a wood.
They show us symbols deep
Of how to sow and reap :
They teach us lessons plain
Of patient harvest-gain.
They still are telling of
God’s unimagined love:—
“Oh gift,” they say,” all gifts above,
Shall it be given in vain?—

“Better you had not seen us
But shared the blind man’s night,
Better you had not scented
Our incense of delight,
Than only plucked to scorn
The rosebud for its thorn :
Not so the instinctive thrush
Hymns in a holly-bush.
Be wise betimes, and with the bee
Suck sweets from prickly tree,
To last when earth’s are flown :
So God well pleased will own
Your work, and bless not time alone
But ripe eternity.”