Читать книгу Poems, and The Spring of Joy - Mary Webb - Страница 50

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They bring her flowers—red roses heavily sweet,

White pinks and Mary-lilies and a haze

Of fresh green ferns; around her head and feet

They heap more flowers than she in all her days

Possessed. She sighed once—‘Posies aren’t for me;

They cost too much.’

Yet now she sleeps in them, and cannot see

Or smell or touch.

Now in a new and ample gown she lies—

White as a daisy-bud, as soft and warm

As those she often saw with longing eyes,

Passing some bright shop window in a storm.

Then, when her flesh could feel, how harsh her wear!

Not warm nor white.

This would have pleased her once. She does not care

At all to-night.

They give her tears—affection’s frailest flowers—

And fold her close in praise and tenderness:

She does not heed. Yet in those empty hours

If there had come, to cheer her loneliness,

But one red rose in youth’s rose-loving day,

A smile, a tear,

It had been good. But now she goes her way

And does not hear.