Last May we made a crown of flowers; we had a merry day,—­
Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May;
And we danced about the May-pole and in the hazel copse,
Till Charles’s Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops.

There’s not a flower on all the hills,—­the frost is on the pane;
I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again. 
I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high,—­
I long to see a flower so before the day I die.

The building-rook’ll caw from the windy tall elm-tree,
And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,
And the swallow’ll come back again with summer o’er the wave,
But I shall lie alone, mother, within the moldering grave.

Upon the chancel casement, and upon that grave of mine,
In the early, early morning the summer sun’ll shine,
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,—­
When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still.

When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light
You’ll never see me more in the long gray fields at night;
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.

You’ll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,
And you’ll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid. 
I shall not forget you, mother; I shall hear you when you pass,
With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.

I have been wild and wayward, but you’ll forgive me now;
You’ll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow;
Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild;
You should not fret for me, mother—­you have another child.

If I can, I’ll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;
Though you’ll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;
Though I cannot speak a word, I shall harken what you say. 
And be often, often with you when you think I’m far away.

Good night! good night! when I have said good night forevermore,
And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door,
Don’t let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green,—­
She’ll be a better child to you than ever I have been.

She’ll find my garden tools upon the granary floor. 
Let her take ’em—­they are hers; I shall never garden more. 
But tell her, when I’m gone, to train the rosebush that I set
About the parlor window and the box of mignonette.

Good night, sweet-mother!  Call me before the day is born. 
All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn;
But I would see the sun rise upon the glad new-year,—­
So, if you’re waking, call me, call me early, mother dear.

CONCLUSION.

I thought to pass away before, and yet alive I am;
And in the fields all around I hear the bleating of the lamb. 
How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year! 
To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet’s here.