The Poet’s Grave

In a lonely spot that was filled with leaves, And the wild waste plants without scent or name, Where never a mourner came,— That was far from the ground where the false world grieves, And far from the shade of the church’s eaves— They buried the Poet with thoughts of shame, And not as one who believes.

Then the tall grass flower with lolling head, Who is king of all flowers that twine or creep On graves where few come to weep, To the briar, and bindweed, and vetch, he said, “Lo, here is a grave of the lonely dead; Let us go up and haste while his soul may sleep, To make the fresh earth our bed.”

Then the rootless briar and bindweed mean, And the grovelling vetch, with the pale trefoil That cumbers the fruitless soil, Yea, the whole strange rout of the earth’s unclean Went up to the grave that was fresh and green; And together they wrought there so dense a coil The grave was no longer seen.

But the tall mad flower whose head is crowned With the long lax petals that fall and flap Like the ears of a fool’s bell-cap, He stood higher than all on the fameless mound; And nodded his head to each passing sound, Darting this way and that, as in sport to trap Each laugh of the winds around.