Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A Burial

To-day I had a burial of my dead.
   There was no shroud, no coffin, and no pall,
No prayers were uttered and no tears were shed--
   I only turned a picture to the wall.

A picture that had hung within my room
   For years and years; a relic of my youth.
It kept the rose of love in constant bloom
   To see those eyes of earnestness and truth.

At hours wherein no other dared intrude,
   I had drawn comfort from its smiling grace.
Silent companion of my solitude,
   My soul held sweet communion with that face.

I lived again the dream so bright, so brief,
   Though wakened as we all are by some Fate;
This picture gave me infinite relief,
   And did not leave me wholly desolate.

To-day I saw an item, quite by chance,
   That robbed me of my pitiful poor dole:
A marriage notice fell beneath my glance,
   And I became a lonely widowed soul.

With drooping eyes, and cheeks a burning flame,
   I turned the picture to the blank wall’s gloom.
My very heart had died in me of shame,
   If I had left it smiling in my room.

Another woman’s husband. So, my friend,
   My comfort, my sole relic of the past,
I bury thee, and, lonely, seek the end.
   Swift age has swept my youth from me at last.

1. The Birth of the Orchid
2. The Call (All wantonly in hours of joy)
3. Be Not Attached
4. Behold the Earth
5. The Black Charger

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