I search the poet's honied lines, And not in vain, for columbines; And not in vain for other flowers That sanctify the many bowers Unsanctified by human souls. See where the larkspur lifts among The thousand blossoms finely sung, Still blossoming in the fragrant scrolls! Charity, eglantine, and rue And love-in-a-mist are all in view, With coloured cousins; but where are you, Sweetwilliam? The lily and the rose have books Devoted to their lovely looks, And wit has fallen in vital showers Through England's most miraculous hours To keep them fresh a thousand years. The immortal library can show The violet's well-thumbed folio Stained tenderly by girls in tears. The shelf where Genius stands in view Has brier and daffodil and rue And love-lies-bleeding; but not you, Sweetwilliam. Thus, if I seek the classic line For marybuds, 'tis, Shakespeare, thine! And ever is the primrose born 'Neath Goldsmith's overhanging thorn. In Herrick's breastknot I can see The apple-blossom, fresh and fair As when he plucked and put it there, Heedless of Time's anthology. So flower by flower comes into view Kept fadeless by the Olympian dew For startled eyes; and yet not you, Sweetwilliam. * * * * * Though gods of song have let you be, Bloom in my little book for me. Unwont to stoop or lean, you show An undefeated heart, and grow As pluckily as cedars. Heat And cold, and winds that make Tumbledown sallies, cannot shake Your resolution to be sweet. Then take this song, be it born to die Ere yet the unwedded butterfly Has glimpsed a darling in the sky, Sweetwilliam! NORMAN GALE ROSE-GERANIUM A pungent spray of rose-geranium-- A breath of the old life. It brings up the little five-room cottage where I was born, And where I grew through a smiling childhood. The white-bearded grandfather sits in his mended rocking-chair, His eyes far off, crooning "The Sweet By and By," Marked with the tapping of his toe upon the weathered porch-floor, While the sunshine drizzles through the great oaks. And there is my grandmother's kneeling figure, Turning over the rich black earth with her trowel; And the kind wrinkles on her face, as she says: "Didn't the pansies do finely this year, Clem? And the scarlet verbenas, and the larkspurs, And the row of flaming salvia.... Those roses ... they're Maréchal Niels ... my favorites. And little grandson, smell this spray of rose-geranium-- Just think, when grandmother was a little tiny girl Her grandmother grew them in her yard!" CLEMENT WOOD FOUR O'CLOCKS