4 AUGUST 1888, Page 16

POETRY.

I CHIDE NOT AT THE SEASONS.

I CHIDE not at the seasons ; for if Spring With backward look refuses to be fair, My Love even more than April makes me sing, And bears May blossom in the bleak March air.

Should Summer fail its tryst, or June delay To wreathe my porch with roses red and pale, Her breath is sweeter than the new-mown hay, Her touch more clinging than the woodbine's trail.

Let Autumn like a spendthrift waste the year, And reap no harvest save the fallen leaves, My Love still ripeneth, though she grows not sere, And smiles enthroned on my piled-up sheaves.

And, last, when miser Winter docks the days, She warms my hearth and keeps my hopes ablaze.

ALFRED AUSTIN.