University of Virginia Library

FLOWERS IN A BOOK.

Here, in my poet's book, I see
The flowers your sweet hand plucked for me.
I turn the leaves: each page is fraught
With gentle flowers of fragrant thought;

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All loveliest things are there, I deem,
That haunt the poet's waking dream.
I turn the leaves: your flowers' dear faces
Gleam, book-marks of the sweetest places
(Yet ne'er a sweeter thought I read
Than those the mute flowers know, indeed);
And evermore they seem to look,
Whene'er I ope their prisoning book,
And, cheated, take—a moment's space—
Their jailer's for their angel's face;
Then, sere and withering, only miss
That resurrection of your kiss!