The garlands and the songs of May

Shall welcome in the Judgment Day;

About the basking country-side

Blossom the souls of them that died.

O Dead awake! Arise in bloom

Upon the joyous dawn of doom.

They rise up from the bleeding earth

In gracious legions of re-birth,

Each as a flower or a tree

Of verdant immortality.

And hosts of glad-voiced angels sing

In the rippling groves of spring.

From the grave of youth there grows

A passionately-petaled rose,

Where the virgin whitely lies

A lily fair as Paradise.

And in that old oak's leafy glee

Some gouty sire makes sport of me.

O Dead of yore and yesterday

All hail the resurrecting May!

Beside you in the flowering grass

The feet of youth and love shall pass,

And we that greet you with a smile

Shall join you in a little while.