

BIRDS AND NATURE. 



ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY. 



THE MORNING-GLORY 





^ 



Glory of the morning's breaking, 

 Rapture of the day's awaking! 



Only flower that knows the story 

 Of my childhood's dawn auroral ! 

 Like a dewy transcript floral 

 Flushed with lights of rosy splendor, 

 Folded lies the record tender 



In deep blooms of Morning-Glory. 



That first chapter of my being 

 Lies fast closed to all my seeing, 



Like some spell-bound, charmed palace! 

 But if e'er there glows before me 

 At day-dawn, a Morning-Glory, — 

 Flashes back in sudden vision, 

 All that early life Elysian, 



From the fragile flower-chalice. 



O, what world is this of splendor ! 

 Can a flower so swiftly render 



To our hearts sweet childhood's rapture? 

 Rapture, -like a rose-mist glowing, 

 Golden, melting, heavenward going, 

 Evanescent, pure, prophetic! 

 Thus shall we, one day ecstatic, 



All the infinite recapture ! 



— Mrs. Merrill E. Gates. 



