William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920.

Elegy before Death

THERE will be rose and rhododendron

When you are dead and underground;

Still will be heard from white Syringas

Heavy with bees, a sunny sound;

Still will the tamaracks be raining.

After the rain has ceased, and still

Will there be robbins in the stubble,

Brown sheep upon the warm, green hill.

Spring will not all, nor autumn falter,

Nothing will know that you are gone,

Saving alone some sullen plowland

None but yourself sets foot upon;

Saving the mayweed and the pigweed

Nothing will know that you are dead—

These, and perhaps a useless wagon

Standing beside some tumbled shed.

Oh, there will pass with your great passing

Little of beauty not your own;

Only the light from common water,

Only the grace from simple stone!

Ainslee’s Magazine