LYRICAL AND DRAMATIC. 159
A VALENTINE.
(FEB. 14, 1897.)
HY did you smile when the summer was dying
If it were not that the hours
Might bring in winter, while sad winds are sighing,
Some of Love’s flowers ?
Now is beginning of spring, and I ask not
Roses to flame o’er the lawn—
Who should know better that peonies bask not
In the sun’s dawn?
Still, through the snow, it may be there is peeping
Veiled from the kiss of the sun |
One lone white violet, daintily sleeping,
Hard to be won.
So with my fairy white maiden (you hear me ?)
. Winter may yet pass away ;
Spring may arrive, (will it find your heart near me?)
Summer may stay.
Passionate roses I seek not, whose glories
Now are too fierce for the spring,
While the white flames of the frost flake that hoar is
Flicker, on wing.