Yellow Jasmine

Do angels come as flowers, O golden stars!

That I can hold within my small white palm?

Or were you dropped from o’er the crystal bars,

Filled with the perfume of celestial psalms?

Why did you come? For fear I should forget?

Nay, but sweet flowers, you would not judge me so.

Are there not memories between us set,

No later love, no future days can know?

Cool bosky woodlands that were jasmine bowers,

With misty haze of bluebells up the glade

Then, had I met an angel pulling flowers,

I had not been astonished or afraid.

Beautiful children, innocent and bright,

O Golden Jasmine! for Love kissing you

I see them yet, with hair like braided light,

And eyes like purple pansies, wet with dew.

Could I have known, could I have but foreseen

How near the pearly gates their feet had won,

How had I clasped those hands my hands between—

Those tiny hands, whose little work is done.

Calm graves, lapped in sweet grasses, cool and deep,

Where soft winds sing and whisper through all hours:

O starry flowers, for me Love’s vigil keep,

With scent and shadow and sweet-dropping flowers.