This week I shall be reading two poems written by local poet Mary Webb at a very small simple funeral where the only flowers will be from the hedgerows, the music will be J S Bach - Sheep May Safely Graze and Tom Jones Green Green Grass of Home...........
An Old Woman
They bring her flowers - red roses heavily sweet,
White pinks and Mary lilies and a haze
Of fresh green ferns; around her head and feet.
They heap more flowers than she in all her days
Possessed. She sighed once -'Posies aren't for me;
They cost too much'
Yet now she sleeps in them and cannot see
Or smell or touch.
Now in a new and ample gown she lies -
White as a daisy bud, as soft and warm
As those she often saw with longing eyes,
Passing some bright shop window in a storm.
Then when her flesh could feel, how harsh her wear!
Not warm nor white.
This would have pleased her once. She does not care
At all tonight.
They give her tears - affection's frailest flowers -
And old her close in praise and tenderness:
She does not heed. Yet in those empty hours
If there had come, to cheer her loneliness,
But one red rose in youth's rose loving day,
A smile, a tear,
It had been good. But now she goes her way
And does not hear.
Safe
Under a blossoming tree
Let me lie down ,
With one blackbird to sing to me
In the evening brown.
Safe from the world's long importunity -
The endless talk, the critical, sly stare,
The trifling social days - and unaware
Of all the bitter thoughts they have of me,
Low in the grass, deep in the daisies,
I shall sleep sound, safe from their blames and praises.