When All Is Said

WHEN all is said,—when all our words
Of love and pleasure, one by one,
Have taken wing and flown like birds
That seek the southern sun, —

Naught shall be changed. The sweet delay
Of April dusks, the rapturous dawn,
The glowing height of golden day,
Shall all go on, and on.

The birds shall thrill the rosy bough
With ecstasy of spring-tide song;
And in the meadows, then as now,
The grass shall crowd and throng.

There shall be flowers and flowers!—to waste
Along the paths where victors tread,
Or where the feasters singing haste ;
And wreaths to deck the dead.

And not the less, cool streams shall run
Through secret haunts of woodland gloom ;
And I shall smile, as smiles the sun
On cradle and on tomb.

When all is said, soul of my soul!
Could all be said of love’s delight
’Twixt thee and me, though time should roll
Beyond earth’s day and night ?

Julie K. Wetherill.