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.