Poems (Van Rensselaer)/The Seed and the Flower

4645569Poems — The Seed and the FlowerMariana Griswold Van Rensselaer
THE SEED AND THE FLOWER
I have forgotten why it was I laughed;
     But well I know
It was because, that idle day, I quaffed
  Such brimming cups of merriment,
  That many days an overflow
  Ran in my finger-tips unspent.
  And so it was I shaped aright
So gay a Scherzo as my Birch-trees in Sunlight.

I have forgotten why it was I wept;
     But I remember
It was because awhile my pulses kept
  The beat of sorrow, that I found
  For my Sonata, the December,
  Those melodies of yearning sound
  That were so beautiful, you said,
I must have dreamed them in a dream where Kreisler played.

And surely, when that I am dead some day,
     The procreant earth,
Though all my music be forgot, will say,
  "Here lies what was a tuneful heart,
  And with its aid I brought to birth
  This triumph of my spring-time art,
  Where, to his nest that softly swings,
The orchard-oriole in the blossoming cherry sings."

For K.M.
  1910.