Dead roses lift their heads
  Out of a grassy tomb;
From ruined pansy-beds
  A thousand pansies bloom. 
The gate is opened wide—­
  The garden that has been
Now blossoms like a bride....
  Who entered in?

GHOSTS:  MADISON CAWEIN

Low, weed-climbed cliffs, o’er which at noon
          The sea-mists swoon: 
Wind-twisted pines, through which the crow
          Goes winging slow: 
Dim fields the sower never sows,
          Or reaps or mows: 
And near the sea a ghostly house of stone
          Where all is old and lone.

A garden, falling in decay,
          Where statues gray
Peer, broken, out of tangled weed
          And thorny seed;
Satyr and Nymph, that once made love
          By walk and grove: 
And, near a fountain, shattered, green with mould,
          A sundial, lichen-old.

Like some sad life bereft,
          To musing left,
The house stands:  love and youth
          Both gone, in sooth: 
But still it sits and dreams: 
          And round it seems
Some memory of the past, still young and fair,
          Haunting each crumbling stair.

And suddenly one dimly sees,
          Come through the trees,
A woman, like a wild moss-rose: 
          A man, who goes
Softly:  and by the dial
          They kiss a while: 
Then drowsily the mists blow round them, wan,
          And they like ghosts are gone.

THE THREE GHOSTS:  THEODOSIA GARRISON

The three ghosts on the lonely road,
    Spake each to one another,
“Whence came that stain upon your mouth
    No lifted hand can cover?”
“From eating of forbidden fruit,
    Brother, my brother.”

The three ghosts on the sunless road,
    Spake each to one another,
“Whence came that red burn on your foot
    No dust or ash may cover?”
“I stamped a neighbor’s hearth-flame out,
    Brother, my brother.”

The three ghosts on the windless road,
    Spake each to one another,
“Whence came that blood upon thy hand
    No other hand may cover?”
“From breaking of a woman’s heart,
    Brother, my brother.”

“Yet on the earth, clean men we walked,
    Glutton and thief and lover,
White flesh and fair, it hid our stains,
    That no man might discover,”
Naked the soul goes up to God,
    Brother, my brother.

“YOU KNOW THE OLD, WHILE I KNOW THE NEW”

AFTER DEATH:  CHRISTINA ROSSETTI