Poetical fragments of the late Richard Alfred Millikin ::

I met her in the fields and thought it spring,
So thick the hedges seem'd with blossoms spread:
I heard the birds within the branches sing,
And saw the cowslip lift his yellow head:
There seem'd a happy change in nature's face
And all things laugh'd and seem'd revived again;
I thought her smile did wintery glooms efface;
And from my bosom fled her inmate pain.

Then straight I ran a flowery wreath to bind,
She turn'd and fled, and left me all alone;
Alas! the blossom I could only find,
Was drifted snow there by the winter sown;
And where the perfum'd cowslip should be found,
Were yellow leaves that wither'd all around.

University of Virginia Library

SONNET.

[I met her in the fields and thought it spring]