THE SAME CONTINUED <br />These flowers shall be my offering, living flowers <br />Which here shall die with you in sacrifice, <br />Flowers from the empty fields which once were yours <br />And now are mine. No gold, nor myrrh, nor spice, <br />Nor any dead man's offering may suffice. <br />I love not flowers: but thus to deck a grave <br />Which has no need of things of greater price. <br />Life is the only tribute death would have. <br />--Ah, thou art dead. Mine is this fair domain <br />With all its living beauty and brave shows <br />Of lawn, and lake, and garden; mine the increase <br />Of the year's harvest, the slow growth of trees, <br />And that fair natural wealth we loved in vain, <br />Flowers, which shall never more adorn my house.<br /><br />Wilfrid Scawen Blunt<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-love-sonnets-of-proteus-part-iv-vita-nova-lxxxv/
