BULB PLANTING TIME

Last night he said the dead were dead

And scoffed my faith to scorn;

I found him at a tulip bed

When I passed by at morn.

“O ho!” said I, “the frost is near

And mist is on the hills,

And yet I find you planting here

Tulips and daffodils.”

“‘ Tis time to plant them now,” he said,

“If they shall bloom in Spring”;

“But every bulb,” said I, “seems dead,

And such an ugly thing.”

“The pulse of life I cannot feel,

The skin is dried and brown.

Now look!” a bulb beneath my heel

I crushed and trampled down.

In anger then he said to me:

“You've killed a lovely thing;

A scarlet blossom that would be

Some morning in the Spring.”

“Last night a greater sin was thine,”

To him I slowly said;

“You trampled on the dead of mine

And told me they are dead.”