ALL in a dreary April day, When the light of my sky was changed to gloom, My first love drooped and faded away, While I sorrowed over its waning bloom. And I buried it, saying bitterly, As I watered its grave with a rain of tears; "No flower of love will bloom for me Save this one, dead in my early years!" But the May-time pushes the April out, And the summer of life succeeds the May; And the heaviest clouds of grief and doubt, In weeping, weep themselves away. And ere I had ceased to mourn above My cherished flower's untimely tomb, Right out of the grave of that buried love There sprang another and fairer bloom. And I cried, "Sleep softly, my perished rose, My pretty bud of an April hour; While I live in the beauty that burns and glows, In the summer heart of my passion flower!" |