A lady came to a snow-white bier, Where a youth lay pale and dead: She took the veil from her widowed head, And, bending low, in his ear she said:
“Awaken! for I am here.” She pass'd with a smile to a wild wood near, Where the boughs were barren and bare; She tapp'd on the bark with her fingers fair,
And call'd to the leaves that were buried there: “Awaken! for I am here.” The birds beheld her without a fear, As she walk'd through the dank-moss'd dells;
She breathed on their downy citadels, And whisper'd the young in their ivory shells: “Awaken! for I am here.” On the graves of the flowers she dropp'd a tear,
But with hope and with joy, like us; And even as the Lord to Lazarus, She call'd to the slumbering sweet flowers thus: “Awaken! for I am here.”
To the lilies that lay in the silver mere, To the reeds by the golden pond; To the moss by the rounded marge beyond, She spoke with her voice so soft and fond:
“Awaken! for I am here.” The violet peep'd, with its blue eye clear, From under its own gravestone; For the blessed tidings around had flown,
And before she spoke the impulse was known: “Awaken! for I am here.” The pale grass lay with its long looks sere On the breast of the open plain;
She loosened the matted hair of the slain, And cried, as she filled each juicy vein: “Awaken! for I am here.” The rush rose up with its pointed spear
The flag, with its falchion broad; The dock uplifted its shield unawed, As her voice rung over the quickening sod: “Awaken! for I am here.”
The red blood ran through the clover near, And the heath on the hills o'erhead; The daisy's fingers were tipp'd with red, As she started to life, when the lady said:
“Awaken! for I am here.” And the young Year rose from his snow-white bier, And the flowers from their green retreat; And they came and knelt at the lady's feet,
Saying all, with their mingled voices sweet: “O lady! behold us here.”
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