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?