Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SHE BLOOMS NO MORE by SARAH HELEN POWER WHITMAN

Poet Analysis

First Line: I DREAD TO SEE THE SUMMER SUN
Last Line: IS STILL A WASTE TO ME.
Subject(s): DESPAIR;
I DREAD to see the Summer sun
Come glowing up the sky,
And modest flow'rets, one by one,
Opening the violet eye;
The choral melody of June --
The perfumed breath of heaven --
The dewy morn -- the radiant noon --
The lingering light of even;

These, which so charm'd my careless heart
In happy days gone by,
A deeper sadness now impart
To memory's thoughtful eye.
They speak of one who sleeps in death,
Her race untimely o'er,
Who ne'er shall taste Spring's honied breath,
Nor see her glories more.

Of one who shared with me, in youth
Life's sunshine and its flowers,
And kept unchanged her bosom's truth
Through all its darkest hours.
She faded when the leaves were sere,
And wailed the Autumn blast;
With all the glories of the year
From earth her spirit pass'd.

Again the nodding lilac bows
Beneath its plumy crest;
In yonder hedge the hawthorn blows,
The robin builds his nest.
The floating vines she loved to train
Around her lattice, rear
Their snowy coronals again,
And hang their garlands there.

But she can bloom on earth no more
Whose early doom I mourn,
Nor Spring, nor Summer, can restore
Our flower untimely shorn;
Her smile is gone, which beamed on me
With mild and steadfast light;
Her rosy lips have mournfully
Breathed out their last good night.

She ne'er will hear again the song
Of merry birds in spring,
Nor roam the flowery braes among
In the year's young blossoming;
Nor longer in the lingering light
Of Summer's eve shall we,
Lock'd hand in hand, together sit
Beneath the green-wood tree.

'T is therefore that I dread to see
The glowing Summer's sun,
And balmy blossoms on the tree,
Unfolding one by one.
They speak of things which once have been,
But never more can be;
And earth, all deck'd in smiles again,
Is still a waste to me.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net