Page:Eight Harvard Poets.djvu/118

 THE WITHERED LEAF, THE FADED FLOWER BE MINE

HE withered leaf, the faded flower be mine, The broken shrine, All things that knowing beauty for a day Have passed away To dwell in the illimitable wood Of quietude, Undying, radiant, young, Passed years among.

No blighting wind upon their beauty blows, The altar glows With flames unquenchable and bright By day, by night; Secure from envious time's deflowering breath They know no death, But silently, imperishably fair, Grow lovelier there.

He who adores too much the impending hour, The budding flower, Who knows not with what dyes an hour that's dead Is garmented, 105