I cannot think of any word To make it plain to you, How white a thing the hawthorn bush That delicately blew Within a crook of Tinges Lane; Each May Day there it stood; And lit a flame of loveliness For the small neighborhood. So fragile-white a thing it was, I cannot make it plain; Or the sweet fumbling of the bees Like the break in a rain. Old Saul lived near. And this his life: -- To cobble for his bread; To mourn a tall son lost at sea; A daughter worse than dead. And so, in place of all his lack, He set the hawthorn tree; Made it his wealth, his mirth, his god, His Zion to touch and see. Born English he. Down Tinges Lane His lad's years came and went; He saw behind that blossoming thorn, A hundred thorns of Kent. At lovers slipping through the dusk He shook a lover's head; Grudged them each flower. It was too white For any but the dead. Once on a silver-mooded day He said to two or three: "Folks, when I go, pluck yonder bloom That I may take with me." But it was winter when he went The road wind-wrenched and torn; They laid upon his coffin lid A wreath made all of thorn. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DON JUAN: DEDICATION [OR, INVOCATION] by GEORGE GORDON BYRON ECHO by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE AN ARCTIC VISION [JUNE 20, 1867] by FRANCIS BRET HARTE RETURN OF SPRING by PIERRE DE RONSARD TO A LOCOMOTIVE IN WINTER by WALT WHITMAN |