Whence comes that swooning fragrance on the air That riot of rich color on the hill Like smouldering embers? red, deep red, and fair They are, beyond our groping words. We thrill To inner surgings of unuttered things When we behold, strewn o’er this alien lea Exotic bloom that to our spirit sings In perfume sweet as lifting melody, Fresh from immortal Eden’s radiant bowers Where angels coveted our earthly flowers. Like elfin torches tipped with odorous fire Raining their ashen petals on the grass, These flowering censers rouse a wild desire For beauty yet unseen, in those who pass This solitary way. O incense sweet! The bees are drunken with it, the wild bees And dragon flies that hunt this still retreat Far from the world of men. Is it for these That Nature lavishes her perfume rare To scent this moorland waste and wandering air? Wild roses, O but they were meant to be More than the sweet companions of an hour; Theirs is a loftier role, their destiny In this sad world, to glorify the power Of beauty welling up beyond the range Of mortal view. Strange ecstasies concealed Aforetime from our blighting frost and change Aurora’s swinging gates have here revealed; Such perfect beauty as the seraph knows Hid in that floral miracle - a rose. THE COAST GUARD STATION Stout fortress on the battle line Of shrieking winds and thunderous surge, A barbican against the brine, A challenge to the breakers’ dirge; Not all the wild Atlantic’s wrath Can bar your men from life boats frail, Nor all the fury of the gale Can swerve them from their destined path! The churning foam may pelt and freeze, The stinging sleet cut to the bone, They venture forth on perilous seas, They venture forth, unsung, alone. Like knights of olden time arrayed In oilskin armor, theirs the role To battle with the raging shoal And beard the tempest unafraid! No martial strains ring in their ears, No banners blaze their desperate way; Only a wife or mother peers From distant sand dunes through the spray. And yet no crown that fame may give Can e’re transcend the solemn pride Of men, whatever may betide, Who risk their lives that men may live. KEEPER OF THE LIGHT Aloft within the beacon tower alone She trims the lamps that send their luminous beams Far out into the night. The eerie moan Of the wild shoal is smothered by the screams Of winds that make the thrumming walls resound With deafening din. She listens, mute with dread, To voices mingling vaguely in the sound Of the storm maddened waves, and shakes her head. “Is it the waves?” she mutters. Bent and old Her fingers tremble so,--but not from cold!