University of Virginia Library


209

TWIN ACORNS.

On one fair stem two acorns grew,
Browned by the golden summer weather;
Together drank the silvery dew,
Rocked in the lulling air together.
Crown jewels of the royal oak,
A brief, brief time his forehead wore them,
For the black tempest came, and broke
The leaf-fringed diadem that bore them.
When the wild storm was overpast,
A maiden, through the forest hieing,
Chancing around her eye to cast,
Found the twin acorns lowly lying.
She picked them up with hand of snow,
A lesson from their fate to borrow,
Deeming them types of love in woe,
Of two fond hearts unchanged by sorrow:
Saying—“When suns no longer shine,
And the red rose of joy is blighted,
Oh, that some breast would beat with mine,
True to the last, and disunited!”