Tuberoses
i.
The Tuberose you left me yesterday
Leans yellowing in the grass we set it in;
It could not live when you were gone away,
Poor spike of withering sweetness changed and thin.
And all the fragrance of the dying flower
Is grown too faint and poisoned at the source,
Like passion that survives a guilty hour,
To find its sweetness heavy with remorse.
What shall we do, my dear, with dying roses?
Shut them in weighty tomes where none will look
—To wonder when the unfrequent page uncloses
Who shut the wither'd blossoms in the book?—
What shall we do, my dear, with things that perish.
Memory, roses, love we feel and cherish?
ii.
Alive and white, we praised the Tuberose,
So sweet it fill'd the garden with its breath,
A spike of waxy bloom that grows and grows
Until at length it blooms itself to death.
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