Sara Teasdale

HOW many million Aprils came

Before I ever knew

How white a cherry bough could be,

A bed of squills how blue!

And many a light-foot April,

When life is done with me,

Will lift the blue flame of the flower

And the white flame of the tree.

Oh, burn me with your beauty then,

Oh, hurt me, tree and flower,

Lest in the end death try to take

Even this glistening hour.

O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,

O sunlit white and blue,

Wound me, that I through endless sleep

May bear the scar of you!