The Easter Flower

Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly

 My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,

Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily

 Soft-scented in the air for yards around;

Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf!

 Just like a fragile bell of silver rime,

It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief

 In the young pregnant year at Eastertime;

And many thought it was a sacred sign,

 And some called it the resurrection flower;

And I, a pagan, worshiped at its shrine,

 Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.