Father Ryan's Poems (68)

    A garland for a grave！ Fair flowers that bloom, And only bloom to fade as fast away, We twine your leaflets 'round our Claudia's tomb, And with your dying beauty crown her clay.

    Ye are the tender types of life's decay； Your beauty, and your loveenfragranced breath, From out the hand of June, or heart of May, Fair flowers！ tell less of life and more of death.

    My name is Sorrow. I have knelt at graves, All o'er the weary world for weary years； I kneel there still, and still my anguish laves The sleeping dust with moaning streams of tears.

    And yet, the while I garland graves as now, I bring fair wreaths to deck the place of woe； Whilst joy is crowning many a living brow, I crown the poor, frail dust that sleeps below.

    She was a flower —— fresh, fair and pure, and frail； A lily in life's morning. God is sweet； He reached His hand, there rose a mother's wail； Her lily drooped： 'tis blooming at His feet.

    Where are the flowers to crown the faded flower？ I want a garland for another grave； And who will bring them from the dell and bower, To crown what God hath taken, with what heaven gave？

    As though ye heard my voice, ye heed my will； Ye come with fairest flowers： give them to me, To crown our Claudia. Love leads memory still, To prove at graves love's immortality.