DEAREST, those purple flowers,
     They seem to me to spring,
From the grave of him, whose loving breast
Was wont to be the living nest
     Of each beautiful thought and thing.

Dearest, those early flowers,
     They speak to me of him,
With the youthful mind, so richly stored
With loftiest thoughts, and as freely poured,
     As from fountain's bubbling brim.

Dearest, those fragrant flowers
     Are odours of his life,
The gentle-hearted, the heavenly-willed,
With the choicest grace of the Holiest, filled,
     Where loveliest deeds, were rife.

Dearest, they breathe, those flowers,
     Of the land, where he takes his rest,
Where the river of immortality flows,
With our White, and Hobart, and Jebb, and Rose,
     And all, that he loved, the best.

Dearest, they say, those flowers--
     Earth's winter womb's first born--
"So shall the dead in Christ arise,
Heirs of the world, beyond the skies,
     On the resurrection morn."

1839.

Project Canterbury