MY FLOWER.

OH! it waited all through the year to bloom,

Waited, and weathered the wind, the gloom,

Pent, and folded, and shaded;

Oh! it blossomed at last for an hour, an hour,

The beautiful, beautiful sun-kissed flower!

And at blaze of the noontide, faded.

Faded, and fell in the fervid air

That had nursed its waking and made it fair ;

Dead with the passion of living:

Oh! spent, and lost, for ever and aye!

A year of work for an hour of play!

A gift withdrawn at the giving!

How shall I measure the good, the ill,

The pain of waiting, the pain of fill,

Long hoping and short fruition?

Shall I nip the buds lest they shed their flowers

In the swift, sweet warmth of meridian hours?

But a resigning, with a painless will,

Of what was lovely once,-is lovely still,

And yet must go.

O mystery of Death!

The formless blank that margins liveliest life!

We turn the weary face towards the wall,

We wish less vehemently hour by hour,

We let the thought-worn spirit ebb away

Into unconsciousness, and as we fail

No more have energy to question God,

Or men, or things, but dimly think it strange

That ever it had seemed to matter so !

Are there degrees of dying? or, when breath

Has ceased for ever, are men all the same?

Do varying intensities of death

Mark of past lives which most deserved the name?

Where noble purpose, unfulfilled, subsides

OCTOBER.

O STILL, Sweet mornings, silvery with frost;

O holy, early sunsets, full of calm;

When the spent year has seen her utmost fruit

And beautifully leans towards her doom.

I think, if I could choose my hour to go

Into the unknown infinite, 'twould be

While earth is lying patiently bereft

During this yearning month ;—while summer holds

A failing hand across the narrowing days

To meet the stern, cold grip of winter: smiles

The last sweet effort of her life away,

And bids October mourn in gold and grey.

'Tis not quite hopefulness I gather there,

And yet methinks it is not quite despair,