UNDER her gentle seeing, In her delicate little hand, They placed the Book of Being, To read and understand. The Book was mighty and olden, Yea, worn and eaten with age; Though the letters look'd great and golden, She could not read a page. The letters flutter'd before her, And all look'd swectly wild: Death saw her, and bent o'er her, As she pouted her lips and smil'd. And weary a little with tracing The Book, she look'd aside, And lightly smiling, and placing A Flower in its leaves, she died. She died, but her sweetness fled not, As fly the things of power, -- For the Book wherein she read not Is the sweeter for the Flower. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MATE (1) by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON SONNET by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE SUN GOD by AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE MACDONALD'S RAID - A.D. 1780 by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE PALINODE; AUTUMN by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL ON HEARING THAT THE STUDENTS OF OUR NEW UNIVERSITY JOINED AGITATION .. by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS |