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bouquet how many more? lavish stems 

 all, that crowd into one brief month more of 

 bloom than their sisters of newer fashion 

 dole out through all the year. 



Black Daphne loves them well. Pro- 

 priety forbids that they nod from her tur- 

 baned head, but all their days of blossom 

 she goes with her breast crowded full of 

 stemless flowers. She saves, too, the drop- 

 ping petals to dry and strew through her 

 chest, her drawers. All her clean garments 

 smell of them, and bring to her a breath of 

 summer, even when snow lies deep. 



Not so her mistress. She grants the 

 flower sightly, but cannot forgive its thorns. 

 In the garden's farthest edge her one child 

 lies buried. The grave is rarely beflowered, 

 but only with soft, smooth stems. The 

 mound is a swell of green-glossed box-vine, 

 with lily-of-the-valley aring at the edge. Be- 

 yond that come tulips, hyacinths in orderly 

 row, with borders, one half of violet tufts, 

 white and blue, one half of pale, fringy, 

 clove-scented pinks. They grow and blow 

 here in this rich, light earth, unplucked, 

 tended always by mother hands. Who 

 shall say that the love, the hope, the pride- 

 ful ambition, closed within that little coffin, 

 do not live again in the flowers ? 



