Poems (Kimball)/My Namesake

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
4472449Poems — My NamesakeHarriet McEwen Kimball
MY NAMESAKE.
FROM silvery clouds the silvery showers
  Fell o'er the earth;
Stole softly forth the faint, sweet flowers
  Of April birth.

An April babe my namesake came
  One April day;
Just claimed on earth her place, her name,
  And fled away.

A few soft sighings of the breath
  And it was spent;
Too frail for life, too sweet for death,
  She came and went.

So brief a stay, so swift a flight,
  Could scarce be felt;
Thus snowflakes falling light as light
  Touch earth and melt.

If verily she hath been here
  We hardly know;
The frailest blossoms of the year
  Her days outgrow.

Sweet month of soft unsorrowing sighs
  And fragrant breath;
Of tender showery, brooding skies;
  Of life, not death;

Her faint sweet memory entomb
  In violets,
The pathos of whose faint perfume
  Breathes no regrets!

How strange to enter Paradise,
  As she to-day,
With not one tear in those sweet eyes
  To wipe away!