Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Trifles

Only a spar from a broken ship
   Washed in by a careless wave;
But it brought back the smile of a vanished lip,
   And his past peered out of the grave.

Only a leaf that an idle breeze
   Tossed at her passing feet;
But she seemed to stand under the dear old trees,
   And life again was sweet.

Only the bar of a tender strain
   They sang in days gone by;
But the old love woke in her heart again,
   The love they had sworn should die.

Only the breath of a faint perfume
   That floated up from a rose;
But the bolts slid back from a marble tomb,
   And I looked on a dear dead face.

Who vaunts the might of a human will,
   When a perfume or a sound
Can wake a Past that we bade lie still,
   And open a long closed wound?

1. The Birth of the Orchid
2. The Black Charger
3. All the World
4. At Set of Sun
5. The Call (All wantonly in hours of joy)

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