These flowers are I, poor Fanny Hurd
Sir or Madam
A little girl here sepultured
Once I flit-fluttered like a bird
Above the grass, as now I wave
In daisy shapes above my grave
All day cheerily
All night eerily!

- I am one Bachelor Bowring, "Gent,"
Sir or Madam;
In shingled oak my bones were pent;
Hence more than a hundred years I spent
In my feat of change from a coffin-thrall
To a dancer in green as leaves on a wall
All day cheerily
All night eerily!

- I, these berries of juice and gloss
Sir or Madam
Am clean forgotten as Thomas Voss;
Thin-urned, I have burrowed away from the moss
That covers my sod, and have entered this yew
And turned to clusters ruddy of view
All day cheerily
All night eerily!
- The Lady Gertrude, proud, high-bred
Sir or Madam
Am I--this laurel that shades your head;
Into its veins I have stilly sped
And made them of me; and my leaves now shine
As did my satins superfine
All day cheerily
All night eerily!

- I, who as innocent withwind climb
Sir or Madam
Am one Eve Greensleeves, in olden time
Kissed by men from many a clime
Beneath sun, stars, in blaze, in breeze
As now by glowworms and by bees
All day cheerily
All night eerily!

- I'm old Squire Audeley Grey, who grew
Sir or Madam
Aweary of life, and in scorn withdrew;
Till anon I clambered up anew
As ivy-green, when my ache was stayed
And in that attire I have longtime gayed
All day cheerily
All night eerily!
- And so they breathe, these masks, to each
Sir or Madam
Who lingers there, and their lively speech
Affords an interpreter much to teach
As their murmurous accents seem to come
Thence hitheraround in a radiant hum
All day cheerily
All night eerily!