MEADOW-SAFFRON. 
167 
Why mourn, dear girl, each passing year ? 
Why dread the sobering touch of time ? 
As if all bliss to mortals dear, 
Thoughts which ennoble, hopes which cheer, 
Fled with our prime. 
Look up ! this calm autumnal day 
May want the joyousness of spring; 
But never did capricious May 
Such kindly warmth, such steadfast ray. 
O’er nature fling. 
What though the leaves, now changed in hue, 
Bestrew our path where’er we turn, 
If yonder “ heaven’s delicious blue,” 
Through the thinnd bough we clearer view. 
Ah ! avIio would mourn ? 
And see, I’ve brought a little flower, 
No lingerer it of summer’s train ; 
Like vesper star to eve’s dim hour, 
It comes to deck pale autumn’s bower, 
And leaf-strewn plain. 
M 4 
