Bring flowers, young flowers, for the festal board,
To wreath the cup ere the wine is pour'd!
Bring flowers! they are springing in wood and vale:
Their breath floats out on the southern gale,
And the touch of the sunbeam hath waked the rose,
To deck the hall where the bright wine flows.

Bring flowers to strew in the conqueror's path!
He hath shaken thrones with his stormy wrath:
He comes with the spoils of nations back,
The vines lie crush'd in his chariot's track,
The turf looks red where he won the day.
Bring flowers to die in the conqueror's way!

Bring flowers to the captive's lonely cell!
They have tales of the joyous woods to tell—
Of the free blue streams, and the glowing sky,
And the bright world shut from his languid eye;
They will bear him a thought of the sunny hours,
And the dream of his youth. Bring him flowers, wild flowers!

Bring flowers, fresh flowers, for the bride to wear!
They were born to blush in her shining hair.
She is leaving the home of her childhood's mirth,
She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth,
Her place is now by another's side.
Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young bride!

Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed,
A crown for the brow of the early dead!
For this through its leaves hath the white rose burst,
For this in the woods was the violet nursed!
Though they smile in vain for what once was ours,
They are love's last gift. Bring ye flowers, pale flowers!

Bring flowers to the shrine where we kneel in prayer—
They are nature's offering, their place is there!
They speak of hope to the fainting heart,
With a voice of promise they come and part,
They sleep in dust through the wintry hours,
They break forth in glory. Bring flowers, bright flowers!

I will tell you what love is: Love is the broken
sound in the night of feet that pass. Unwoken,
the lover stirs in his sleep, and, while he stirs,
a foot has gone past in the night as light as hers.

I will tell you what love is: Love is the proud
mouth that was shut in marble, and the loud
songs of the world are sung on lips all warm,
but these cold lips sing not, and have worked such harm.

I will tell you what love does: Man builds a greater
city than Babylon with gardens, and love, turned traitor,
sells the high town to the dream's eternal foeman,
that comes with the false sweet key, by night, of a woman.

I will tell you how love ends: Without a sound
love stabs in the dark of the heart, and leaves no wound.
And what was a man goes slowly, listening
for a tune played on a harp, but it has no string.

I will tell you all these things, and when they are told,
I shall remember the austere head of gold,
his slender motionless grace, and how he stands
looking with happy wonder at the cowslips in his hands.