Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/464

436 Three flowers—and one is crimson, rich and strong;

This will, if well entreated, all others outlive long:

Its name is Love.

EARLY AUTUMN

THE LAST FLOWER OF THE GARDEN

by one the flowers of the garden

To autumn yielded as waned the sun;

So prisoners, called by the cruel Terror,

To death went, one by one.

Roses, and many a delicate blossom,

Down fell their heads, in the breezes keen,

One by one; and the frost of autumn

Was the blade of their guillotine.

And at last an hour when the emerald pathways

Grew from green to a wintry white;

And a new, strange beauty came into the garden

In the full moon's flooding light.

For a radiance struck on the columned fountain

As it shot to the stars in a trembling stream,

And a rainbow, springing above the garden,

Was the dream of a dream in a dream.