The wreath that star-crowned Shelley gave
Is lying on thy Roman grave,
Yet on its turf young April sets
Her store of slender violets;
Though all the Gods their garlands shower,
I too may bring one purple flower.
Alas! what blossom shall I bring,
That opens in my Northern spring?
The garden beds have all run wild,
So trim when I was yet a child;
Flat plantains and unseemly stalks
Have crept across the gravel walks;
The vines are dead, long, long ago,
The almond buds no longer blow.
No more upon its mound I see
The azure, plume-bound theur-de-lis;
Where once the tulips used to show,
In straggling tufts the passive grow;
The grass has quenched my white-rayed gem,
The flowering “Star of Bethlehem,”
Though its long blade of glossy green
And pallid stripe may still be seen.
Nature, who treads her nobles down,
And gives their birthright to the clown,
Has sown her base-born weedy things
Above the garden’s queens and kings.
Yet one sweet flower of ancient race
Springs in the old familiar place.
When snows were melting down the vale,
And Earth unlaced her icy mail,
And March his stormy trumpet blew,
And tender green came peeping through,
I loved the earliest one to seek
That broke the soil with emerald beak,
And watch the trembling bells so blue
Spread on the column as it grew.
Meek child of earth! thou wilt not shame
The sweet, dead poet’s holy name;
The God of music gave thee birth,
Called from the crimson-spotted earth,
Where, sobbing his young life away,
His own fair Hyacinthus lay.
The hyacinth my garden gave
Shall lie upon that Roman grave.
Posts Tagged ‘march’
Cold Things by Dennis Allen Lange
Posted in My Poems, tagged bard on the hill, brusque, cheery gleam, cold hearted neighbor, Cold Things, Dennis Allen Lange, glum Winter, ironed out wrinkles, march, paces, poems, poetry, seamless clouds, smooth, sunshine, unfeeling on November 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »
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Glum Winter’s clouds are seamless, smooth,
…No hint of smile, no twinkles.
The cold winds in the sky above
…Have ironed out all the wrinkles.
They never have a cheery gleam
…From sunshine on their faces.
Instead, cold Winter says to march
…And puts them through their paces.
They seem to be an enemy,
…Cold, brusque, and so unfeeling,
That hover where the blue once was
…As an unwelcome ceiling.
Yet they are much more friendly than
…A man who once was neighbor
To whom all others were a pain
…And happiness a labor.
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© Dennis Allen Lange, 2019.
The Bard on the Hill 