Three flowers—and one is crimson, rich and strong;
This will, if well entreated, all others outlive long:
Its name is Love.
EARLY AUTUMN
The garden still is green
And green the trees around—
But the winds are roaring overhead
And branches strew the ground.
And to-day on the garden pool
Floated an autumn leaf:
How rush the seasons, rush the years,
And, O, how life is brief!
THE LAST FLOWER OF THE GARDEN
One by one the flowers of the garden
To autumn yielded as waned the sun;
So prisoners, called by the cruel Terror,
To death went, one by one.
Roses, and many a delicate blossom,
Down fell their heads, in the breezes keen,
One by one; and the frost of autumn
Was the blade of their guillotine.
And at last an hour when the emerald pathways
Grew from green to a wintry white;
And a new, strange beauty came into the garden
In the full moon's flooding light.
For a radiance struck on the columned fountain
As it shot to the stars in a trembling stream,
And a rainbow, springing above the garden,
Was the dream of a dream in a dream.
