Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly          My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground, Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily          Soft-scented in the air for yards around;

Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf!          Just like a fragile bell of silver rime, It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief          In the young pregnant year at Eastertime;

And many thought it was a sacred sign,          And some called it the resurrection flower; And I, a pagan, worshiped at its shrine,          Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.