DLTK's Poems
The Reaper and the
Flowers
There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with
his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the
flowers that grow between.
"Shall I have naught that is fair?"
saith he;
"Have naught but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of
these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back again."
He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
He kissed their
drooping leaves;
It was for the Lord of Paradise
He bound them in
his sheaves.
"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
The
Reaper said, and smiled;
"Dear tokens of the earth are they,
Where
he was once a child.
"They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,
And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear."
And the mother gave, in tears and
pain,
The flowers she most did love;
She knew she should find them
all again
In the fields of light above.
O, not in cruelty, not
in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
'Twas an angel visited the
green earth,
And took the flowers away.
