Vi

Then, suddenly, I was awake. Dead things Were all about me and the year was dead. Save where the birches grew, all leaves were shed And nowhere fell the sound of song or wings. The fields I deemed were graves of worshipped Kings Had lost their bloom; no honey-bee now fed Therein, and no white daisy bowed its head To harken to the wind's love-murmurings. Yet, by my dream, I know henceforth for me This time of year shall hold some unknown grace When the leaves fall, and shall be sanctified: As April only comes for memory Of him who kissed the veil from Beauty's face That we might see, and passed at Easter-tide.

These six sonnets IN MEMORABILIA MORTIS, written at Fredericton, New Brunswick, on the third day of October, MDCCCXCVI, by Francis Sherman, are privately printed at the University Press, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, early in December of the same year.