They laid the bodies on the bed together. And "You were beautiful," she said, "and you Were my own darling in the April weather. You knew my very soul, you knew, you knew. Oh, my sweet, piteous love, I was not true. Fetch me fair water and the flowers of spring; My love is dead, and I must deck his burying."
They left her with her dead; they could not choose But grant the spirit burning in her face Rights that their pity urged them to refuse. They did her sorrow and the dead a grace. All night they heard her passing footsteps trace Down to the garden from the room of death. They heard her singing there, lowly, with gentle breath,
To the cool darkness full of sleeping flowers, Then back, still singing soft, with quiet tread, But at the dawn her singing gathered powers Like to the dying swan who lifts his head On Eastnor, lifts it, singing, dabbled red, Singing the glory in his tumbling mind, Before the doors burst in, before death strikes him blind.
So triumphing her song of love began, Ringing across the meadows like old woe Sweetened by poets to the help of man Unconquered in eternal overthrow; Like a great trumpet from the long ago Her singing towered; all the valley heard. Men jingling down to meadow stopped their teams and stirred.
And they, the Occleves, hurried to the door, And burst it, fearing; there the singer lay Drooped at her lover's bedside on the floor, Singing her passionate last of life away. White flowers had fallen from a blackthorn spray Over her loosened hair. Pale flowers of spring Filled the white room of death; they covered everything.
Primroses, daffodils, and cuckoo-flowers. She bowed her singing head on Michael's breast. "Oh, it was sweet," she cried, "that love of ours. You were the dearest, sweet; I loved you best. Beloved, my beloved, let me rest By you forever, little Michael mine. Now the great hour is stricken, and the bread and wine
"Broken and spilt; and now the homing birds Draw to a covert, Michael; I to you. Bury us two together," came her words. The dropping petals fell about the two. Her heart had broken; she was dead. They drew Her gentle head aside; they found it pressed Against the broidered 'kerchief spread on Michael's breast,