Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/571

 1850-60.] HELEN L. BOSTWICK. 555 From every wilding way-side fern, And honeysuckle cup. Not but I blest them — bade them bless ; But if to me they never brought That vital balm of perfectness, The sustenance I sought ; If oft I pined for that which seemed Free as the air to all beside, And held for Fate what others deemed Indifference, or Pride ; What marvel, that when, thirsty-lipped, I came where royal roses grew, I claimed them for my own, and sipped Their winy sweets like dew. It was my right : for life, for growth In all life's purest, most divine ; The need was on me : choice, God knoweth, AVas not the flower's nor mine. And yet, in grasping all, I erred — Not all were germs of godlike birth ; In some, the heavenly ichor stirred ; In some, mere sap of earth. How soon these languished on the stem. Your thought must needs respond (for I Speak harshlier of the dead than them), And thus have answered why I cannot bend me at your pride, More than I wound me with your scorn; What care I that my rose that died, Had e'er so sharp a thorn? Died ? Nay, not as the world calls dead ; How many a proper flower has bloomed In trimmed and cultured garden bed, Tintless, and unperfumed! And thus my rose of friendship lives, And buds and blooms its wasting hour ; And common boon of smiling gives To common sun and shower. Pleasant — yet not a thing to choose, As ere the unkindly beak of Doubt Let the sweet odor-spirit loose. And bled the color out. I pray, as I have ever prayed, " God bless thee," with no backward will, The lake, with all its lilies dead. Reflects the gi-een boughs still. I pray, as I have ever prayed — " Christ, fill these needy hearts irom thine!" On lakes that mourn their lilies dead. The holy stars still shine ! LITTLE DANDELION. Little Bud Dandelion Hears from her nest — ■ " Merry -heart, starry-eye, Wake from your rest ! " Wide ope the emeral lids ; Robins above, — Wise little Dandelion Smiles at his love. Cold lie the daisy banks. Clad but in green. Where in the Mays agone, Bright hues were seen. Wild pinks are slumbering, Violets delay — True little Dandelion Greeteth the May. Meek little Dandelion Groweth more fair, Till dries the amber dew Out from her hair. High rides the thirsty sun. Fiercely and high, — Faint little Dandelion Closeth her eye !