O Sweet Anemones
Reading edition
By Jessie E. Sampter
This Song is one of a series put into the mouth of a nationalist Pharisee of Jerusalem living through the times of the coming of Jesus to Jerusalem and the later development or perversion of Jesus' ideals by Paul.
O sweet anemones on Sharon's plain,
Light dancing seraphim of sun and rain,
Was he not one of us, was he not ours?
And yet he saved not us, O crimson flowers!
As stars that bloom in heaven, full-bloom and still,
As native stags that leap from hill to hill,
As you, dear blossom-stars, on native plains,
So planted here, with God, our home remains.
I, too, would perish here, where he has died,
But felled by horse and spear, not crucified;
I, man of peace, would pour, O Rock of God,
My freedom or my blood on Zion's sod.
When pagans sweep thy fields with withering blast,
My heart is sanctified to death at last;
Its taste is honey-sweet within my mouth,
For we that drink with God can dread no drouth.
O sweet anemones on Sharon's plain,
A spring shall come for us, to bloom again,—
To God a day, to us a thousand years,—
Who still remembers, lives, refreshed with tears.