The Lone Lilac

Only a cellar broken Down to a dimpled mound, Of the olden time a token In the brier entangled ground. And a lonely lilac vagrant As a sunbeam lost in gloom, Close by like a garland fragrant At the door of a crumbling tomb. Full many a tree appearing Has ploughed through the sodden loam Where once was a fertile clearing Protecting a friendly home. And sweet as the perfume welling From the lilac over the way, Was life in that quaint old dwelling In that long forgotten day. Under the eaves, enfolded It mothered its little brood; But the sills long since have molded To dust in that solitude. Now through the locusts treading (A grove from a single one) Like the virile banyan spreading Neath the burning Indian sun. We can vision those fields in culture; And the beds once bright with flowers, Where a crow now sits like a vulture, And broods through the sunlit hours. While stark through the verdure risen Like the tides in the distant bay, Through a cleft in its leafy prison Peers the lilac over the way. Anon as the breezes bluster, Then die and are strangely mute, The echoing memories cluster Like strains from a far off lute. We can almost hear the fingers Strumming an elfin lay - For the soul of that home still lingers In the lilac over the way.