He gather'd blue forget-me-nots,
⁠To fling them laughing on her knee.
She cried, "Ah no; if thou canst go,
⁠Ah, love, thou shalt forgotten be!"

He gather'd golden buttercups,
⁠That grow so very fresh and free.
"Ah, happy plays, in childish days,
⁠When buttercups were gold to me!"

He gathered little meadow-sweet,
⁠And hid it where she could not see.
She peep'd about and found it out,
⁠And laugh'd aloud, and so did he.

He gather'd shining silver-weed;
⁠He stole the heather from the bee:
Amid the grass the minutes pass,
⁠And twilight lingers on the lee.

Thou art so very sweet and fair,
⁠With such a heaven in thine eyes,
It almost seems an overcare
⁠To ask thee to be good or wise:

As if a little bird were blam'd
⁠Because its song unthinking flows;
As if a rose should be asham'd
⁠Of being nothing but a rose.

Alas! why have we souls at all?
⁠Why has each life a higher goal?
May not a thing as pure and small
⁠As thou art — be excused a soul?

If there were only birds and flowers,
⁠How beautiful the world would be!
Or could we spend our happy hours,
⁠And live like them, how blest were we!

Alas! but life is but a breath,
⁠And every breath with danger rife,
And every breath leads on to death,
⁠And after death — the real life!

The dandelions in the grass
⁠Are blown to fairies' clocks,
On this green bank I pluckt (alas!)
⁠The last of lady-smocks.

⁠Let them die,
⁠What care I?
Roses come when field flowers pass.

But these sun-sated, sultry hours
⁠Will make your roses fall,
Their large, wide-open, crimson flowers
⁠Must die like daisies small.

⁠Sweet as yet!
⁠I'll forget
(When they die) they lived at all!

Lord, we can trust thee for our holy dead,
⁠They, underneath the shadow of thy tomb,
Have entered into peace: with bended head,
⁠We thank thee for their rest, and for our lightened gloom.

But, Lord, our living — who, on stormy seas
⁠Of sin and sorrow, still are tempest-tossed!
Our dead have reached their haven, but for these —
⁠Teach us to trust thee, Lord, for these, our loved and lost!

For these we make our passion-prayer by night;
⁠For these we cry to thee through the long day.
We see them not, O keep them in thy sight;
⁠From them and us, be thou not very far away.

And if not home to us, yet lead them home
⁠To where thou standest at the heavenly gate;
That so, from thee they shall not farther roam;
⁠And grant us patient hearts thy gatheringtime to wait.

What can heal a broken heart?
⁠Death alone I fear me,
Thou that dost true lovers part,
What can heal a broken heart?
Death alone that made the smart,
⁠Death that will not hear me.
What can heal a broken heart?
⁠Death alone I fear me.