LIX LOVE’S LAST GIFT

LIX

LOVE’S LAST GIFT

Love to his singer held a glistening leaf

    And said: ‘The rose-tree and the apple-tree

    Have fruits to vaunt or flowers to lure the bee;

And golden shafts are in the feathered sheaf

Of the great harvest-marshal, the year’s chief,

    Victorious Summer; aye, and ’neath warm sea

    Strange secret grasses lurk inviolably

Between the filtering channels of sunk reef.

All are my blooms; and all sweet blooms of love

    To thee I gave while Spring and Summer sang;

    But Autumn stops to listen, with some pang

From those worse things the wind is moaning of.

Only this laurel dreads no winter days:

Take my last gift; thy heart hath sung my praise.’