In her satin gown so fine Trips the bride within the shrine. Waits the street to see her pass, Like a vision in a glass. Roses crown her peerless head: Keep your lilies for the dead! Something of the light without Enters with her, veiled about; Sunbeams, hiding in her hair, Please themselves with silken wear; Shadows point to what shall be In the dim futurity. Wreathe with flowers the weighty yoke Might of mortal never broke. From the altar of her vows To the grave's unsightly house Measured is the path, and made: All the work is planned and paid. As a girl, with ready smile, Where shall rise some ponderous pile, On the chosen, festal day, Turns the initial sod away, So the bride with fingers frail Founds a temple or a jail, -- Or a palace, it may be, Flooded full with luxury, Open yet to deadliest things, And the Midnight Angel's wings. Keep its chambers purged with prayer: Faith can guard it, Love is rare. Organ, sound thy wedding-tunes! Priest, recite the sacred runes! Hast no ghostly help nor art Can enrich a selfish heart, Blessing bind 'twixt greed and gold, Joy with bloom for bargain sold? Hail, the wedded task of life! Mending husband, moulding wife. Hope brings labor, labor peace; Wisdom ripens, goods increase; Triumph crowns the sainted head, And our lilies wait the dead. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPEAKING TERMS by JAMES GALVIN WILLOW POEM by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS MIDWINTER BLUES by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES THE SONG OF HIAWATHA: HIAWATHA'S DEPARTURE by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THAT GENERAL UTILITY RAG, BY OUR OWN IRVING BERLIN by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS LITTLE JOHN AND THE RED FRIAR; A LAY OF SHERWOOD by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN |