Explore "Trifles" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Only a spar from a broken ship / Washed in by a careless wave; / But it brought back the smile of a vanished lip, / And his past peered out of the grave.
Only a leaf that an idle breeze / Tossed at her passing feet; / But she seemed to stand under the dear old trees, / And life again was sweet.
Only the bar of a tender strain / They sang in days gone by; / But the old love woke in her heart again, / The love they had sworn should die.
Only the breath of a faint perfume / That floated up from a rose; / But the bolts slid back from a marble tomb, / And I looked on a dear dead face.
Who vaunts the might of a human will, / When a perfume or a sound / Can wake a Past that we bade lie still, / And open a long closed wound?