It was so much the way that tulips bloom, Her coming and the way she had with me -- So much the way a tulip mocks a tree Which late in April keeps a winter gloom -- That I, like one who guards in a close room Precarious fires, was wholly glad to see Such light, incautious burning -- glad that she, Completely torch, made gay her certain doom. But since those bright, disturbing flowers are dark And lie, more ash than ember, on the ground, I feel a purpose in the brilliant play That was of very life, and less a mark Of folly than of knowing quite profound And perfect things about brief-living clay. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON THE WAY (PHILADELPHIA, 1794) by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON FRAGMENT ON DEATH by FRANCOIS VILLON SARRAZINE'S SONG, FR. CHAITIVEL by MARIE DE FRANCE THE MASK OF ANARCHY; WRITTEN ON OCCASION OF MASSACRE AT MANCHESTER by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY THE PATRIOTIC MERCHANT PRINCE by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS |