28 NOVEMBER 1908, Page 20

POETRY.

AMORIS INTEGRATIO.

IN the garden, every moment, wither'd leaves are trembling down, And the sward looks dim and dreary, and the trees are bare or brown,

And the autumn flowers are dying, and the birds are sad and few ; And there's nothing left unchanged, except the love I have for you.

All the sky is void of colour, all the earth is grey and wan ; Nature shudders at her own doom, for she shares the doom of Man : And she rocks not of the promise and the beauty of the. spring,— Neither she nor all her children ever think of such a thing !

Yet they will have that fair promise, it will come to one and all, And the self-same trees will blossom, and the self-same birds will call ;

They will call to one another, they will pipe and sing again, To the hearts of other women, to the hopes of other men.

But they will not call their old mates, they have new ones every year ; For their loves are short and fleeting, and their only home is here: They know nothing of a future where the souls that once were two Now are wholly one for ever, you in me and I in you.

ARTHUR MUNBY.