THE POET’S CORNER

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9074, 14 February 1908, Page 6

THE POET’S CORNER

AN EMBLEM. I waited for a "single'flower to blow, While about me flowers were running wild; Gold-hearted king cups,sunnily that smiled, And daisies, like fresh-fallen flakes 'of snow. And rarest violets, sweet whole colonies Nestled in shady grasses by the brooks, That sang for love of them and their sweet looks, Delicious melodies. Now they are perished, all the fragile throng, That held their sweetness up to me in vain. Only this single blossom doth remain, For whose unfolding I have waited long, Thinking, “How rare a bloom these petals clasp!” And lo! a sickly, dwarfed and scentless thing, Mocking my love and its close iourishing, And withering in my grasp. O dream! O hope ! O promise of long years! Art thou a flower that I have nurtured so, Missing the every day sweet joys that grow By common pathways; moistened with my tears, Watched through the dreary day and sleepless night. And all about thy slender rootlets cast My life like water, bat to find at last A bitterness and blignt? —lna Ooolbrith.