eben e. rexford. 
This is the story they told to me 
In the homes of the fishermen down by the sea, 
And that it is true, I have never a doubt; 
For I found the flower they told about. 
A man came into the town, they said, 
With a face as pale as the faces dead; 
But oh! the marvelous light in his eyes, 
As if it shone through them from Paradise ! 
All day he would sit by the great gray sea, 
(She said, who repeated the story to me;) 
Would sit alone with his luminous eyes 
On the fading sails and the far, blue skies. 
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Often the men at their work would hear 
A song that haunted the heart and ear 
With unearthly music, whose strains so sweet 
Not one who heard it could ever repeat. 
One morn on the rocks they found him dead, 
With a smile on his lips ; and some fishers said 
That at midnight-time they heard, at sea, 
A song of most wonderful melody. 
They made him a grave on the lonely hill, 
Where the wind in the pine-tree is never still; 
And in barren earth they hid away 
The wonderful eyes from the light of day. 
One day a child climbed the lull to find 
The grave of the singer. The wandering wind 
Was sweet far round with a strange perfume, 
And lo ! the grave was all white with bloom 1 
He carried a blossom away to show 
The fisher folks in the town below ; 
And, wondering much, they came to see 
'The beautiful grave by the old pine-tree. 
This is the story they told to me 
In the fisherman’s village, there by the sea. 
What the miracle was full well I knew : 
The thoughts of the poet to blossoms grew; 
And the soul of the singer, when he was dead, 
Gave birth to the beauty over his head. 
