ASHES OF ROSES
'MID roses and rustle and laughter,
Tea, greetings and gossip as well,
The two of them met, a year after—
What neither would care to tell.
Yet who could have said it mattered,
Although with the eyes to see?—
For they gossiped and laughed and chattered
Of the marriages soon to be,
Of the fact of his lessening chances,
And the strangers come to town,
The dinners and plays and dances,
And the death of poor Nell Brown.
And he—oh, he spoke of his journey,
And how Gibson had made a hit
With his "Married," and Susie Gurney
Was the model who sat for it.
And they talked of Le Gallienne's novel,
And she argued that Browning was wrong,
With his rot about love and a hovel,
And hunger and babies and song!
And they chatted and sipped and debated,
Till a man who was gaunt and gray
Came and said that the carriage waited,
And hurried his wife away
And so in the crowd they parted,
And the world went on the same;
And neither was broken-hearted,
Yet unto them both there came
A thought that they dare not cherish,
A riddle they left unread:
How so muck of them both could perish,
Yet neither, indeed, be dead!
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THE HARMONY
YOU ask what is it—motion, manner, voice,
Most makes my heart rejoice
When I give thought to her who is my choice—
Glance of the eye, or wafture of a smile,
White winsomeness or wile,
That doth my raptured fancy most beguile?
Not one alone of these things can it be,
Since they all form to me
The parts of a compacted harmony!
