  Like music heard in mellow chime, The charm of her transforming time Upon my senses steals As softly as from sunny walls, In day's decline, their shadow falls Across the sleeping fields. A fair, illumined book Is nature's page whereon I look While "autumn turns the leaves;" And many a thought of her designs Between those rare, resplendent lines My fancy interweaves. I dream of aborigines, Who must have copied from the trees The fashions of the day: Those gorgeous topknots for the head, Of yellow tufts and feathers red, With beads and sinews gay. I wonder if the saints behold Such pageantry of colors bold Beyond the radiant sky; And if the tints of Paradise Are heightened by the strange device Of making all things die. Because of her expiring throes, As if around her tomb Unmeet it were,—the look severe That designates a common bier Enwreathed in deepest gloom. And so I meditate if aught Can be so fair where death is not; If Heaven's loveliness Is born of struggle and decay; And, but for funeral array, Would it be beautiless? Oh solemn, sad, sweet mystery That Earth's unrivaled brilliancy Is but her splendid pall! That Heaven were not what it is But for that crown of tragedies, The sacrifice for all. So not a charm would Zion lose Were it bereft of sparkling hues In gilded lanes and leas; It would be bright though not a flower Unclosed in its celestial bower, And void of jeweled trees. Its name is his who died for me; Whose matchless beauty shows Perfection on its bleeding stem, The blossom-bud of Bethlehem, The Resurrection Rose. |
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