^Ettafroio Saffron. 199 
Oh! thou who dry’st the mourner’s tear, 
How dark this world would be, 
If, when deceived and wounded here. 
We could not fly to thee! 
The friends who in our sunshine live, 
When winter comes, are flown; 
And he who has but tears to give, 
Must weep those tears alone: 
But thou wilt heal that broken heart, 
Which, like the plants that throw 
Their fragrance from the wounded part, 
Breathes sweetness out of wo. 
Moore. 
Then bright from earth, amid the troubled sky, 
Ascends fair Colchicum, with radiant eye, 
Warms the cold bosom of the hoary year, 
And lights with beauty’s blaze the dusky sphere. 
Darwin. 
The world around me groweth gray and old: 
My friends are dropping one by one away; 
Some live in distant lands—some in the clay 
Rest quietly, their mortal moments told. 
And when my children gather at my knee 
To worship God and sing our morning psalm, 
Their rising stature whispers unto me 
My life is waning towards its evening calm. 
MacKellar. 
