2 i8 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. xn. 



He vanished with the daisies loved so well, 

 And with him all the summer of our heart. 

 We will not murmur ; for a tenderer Hand 

 Than ours has plucked our human daisy here, 

 To plant it in His fadeless fields above, 

 Beside the stream of life. Not his the fate 

 Of the late autumn flower to linger on, 

 With all his loved ones gone, and pine away 

 In the cold feeble light of lonely age. 

 Kind death has saved him all the waste of life, 

 Conserved his beauty at the fairest point, 

 And kept for us our boy in heaven unchanged 

 Through all our changes an immortal child 

 To love for evermore. 



