Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/340

 3 o6 THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

LOVE'S WREATH.

��BY GEORGE KENT.

" He who does not love flowers has lost all fear and lovo of God." — Ludwig Tieg.

A wreath for the loved one! What fitly composes

A chaplet to circle the brow of the fair? Not the evergreen band, intertwined with fresh roses.

Nor diamonds inwreathed with the braids of her hair.

The cincture, to girdle the fair form of beauty, Its emblem may rind in the vine and the flower;

But the amaranth garland, of truth and of duty, Alone is meet gem for fair woman's high dower.

Inwreathed in this garland the myrtle is blending,

An emblem the purest, of love undefiled; Wild beaut\ T and innocence, hand-maids attending,

In the daisy bestudding the bleak desert wild.

The box and blue hyacinth vie in revealing True constancy, priceless, the mind to adorn;

While modest}', loved for its very concealing, In the violet timidly opes to the morn.

Heart' s-purity beams in the white water lily. While humility modestly bends in the broome;

And hope, in the hawthorn, life's evening so stilly, Becalms, the more surely the night to illume.

No bachelor's buttons are fixtures befitting

The wreath twined for crowning loved woman's fair form ; No nightshade should lower that calm brow ever knitting

Into gloom that precedes or that follows a storm.

True lady's-delight should be found in communion With nature, uniinged by the gew-gaws of art;

In the fellowship rare of the spirit's pure union, A reciprocal blending — a duplicate heart.

��FORSAKEN.

��BY ELLA "W. KICKER.

The rose-tree, over the garden wall. "Long since, on the mossy sward be-

With a languid air is swaying; neath,

In wild luxuriance to all Have my petals fair been lying;

Her scarlet fruit displaying. They fell, as the snow-flake's fleecy

I pause to gather a thorny spray. On^the wind's wild pinions flying.

\\ here the heaviest clusters glisten, L jo

And while my feet a moment stay, ufi j „ d h, h.

To her sad repining listen. low]y ^ *>

"•Alas !" she sighs to the roving breeze, In my heart a secret holding,

" I have neither friend or lover, ' These are only the buds of hope ' I said,

And even the butterfles and bees I will wait the full unfolding. No longer about me hover.

.... ,, . T " Lo over the hills, like banners sjay,

4 ! K nai Y V W6r f ™ SUnn '-' ^ UQe Streams autumn's leafy splendor,

My beauty and sweetness praising, An(J h sighe / he £ life a ^ a

And never a summer afternoon, , „ „ ~ *,_,,_ J

��But sparkling eyes were gazing.

��In breezes soft and tender.

��" They loitered adown the grassy lane — " I stand, at last, with my ripened fruit Gay lad and blushing maiden. In full perfection shining;

And hailed me ' Queen of the floral train,' But the voices I long to hear are mute, With buds my boughs were laden. And the daylight is declining."

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