The Miracle

Edwin Arlington Robinson

“Dear brother, dearest friend, when I am dead,
And you shall see no more this face of mine,
Let nothing but red roses be the sign
Of the white life I lost for him,” she said;
“No, do not curse him,—pity him instead;
Forgive him!—forgive me! . . God’s anodyne
For human hate is pity; and the wine
That makes men wise, forgiveness.  I have read
Love’s message in love’s murder, and I die.”
And so they laid her just where she would lie,—
Under red roses.  Red they bloomed and fell;
But when flushed autumn and the snows went by,
And spring came,—lo, from every bud’s green shell
Burst a white blossom.—Can love reason why?

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