With drooping head and branches crossed The twilight forest grieves, Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost From all its sunlit leaves. The blue sky is the temple's arch, So Nature keeps the reverent frame THE PRESsed gentIAN. THE time of gifts has come again, And, on my northern window-pane, Outlined against the day's brief light, A Christmas token hangs in sight. The wayside travellers, as they pass, Mark the gray disk of clouded glass; And the dull blankness seems, perchance, Folly to their wise ignorance. They cannot from their outlook see The frosty breath of autumn blew, So, from the trodden ways of earth, Seem some sweet souls who veil their worth, And offer to the careless glance To loving eyes alone they turn Their beauty from the world outside. But deeper meanings come to me, My half-immortal flower, from thee! |