The Red-Heart Daisy. — A Russian Allegory
THE clouds of battle-tempest had blown over;
The storm of wrath
Had swept through fields of ripening corn and clover,
And in its path
Had left the human cyclone’s awful traces
In quivering bodies and distorted faces.
Among the bloody drift of dead and dying
That strewed the ground,
A Prince and Serf, in Death’s communion lying,
The searchers found.
Earth drank both life-streams; as their current ended,
Blue blood and peasant’s in one tide had blended.
Some essence from the forms interred together
Enriched the clay,
And toned with deeper tints the patch of heather
’Neath which they lay—
Rough hide and dainty skin—deep brain and hollow—
Silver and iron—Vulcan and Apollo.
And when the Spring returned, and daisies spangled
The mountain’s crest,
Clusters with hearts of crimson were entangled
Among the rest,
Upon the spot where baron’s dream of glory
Had mingled with the toiler’s duller story.
Those who would make our land a frame of metal,
With jewelled heart,
Would have us view the daisy’s centre petal
As thing apart
From its white fringe; and, bringing death to both,
Would mar the flow’ret’s, like the nation’s, growth.