NEVER MORE.
"0 SWEETNESS that can never more return
Thou art passed out of life,—and whither flown ? The hard-pruned bough may heal, and sprout anew, And some light hearts may all too quickly learn To spare the brave, and live without the true.
But as some painter that yet seeks in vain
The long-wooed colour for his hungry eye, And dreams it woven on some foreign loom, To wake and find it missing 'neath his sky, So have we lost a glory to the tomb.
Spring shall come round, and all her sounds be dear, And sweet her lips with all ambrosial dew, The wooing sun shall set earth's heart astir, And she rejoice, and we have rapture too, But one hushed chord shall no more answer her.
'Out of life's sunny woof one thread is drawn, Death's face hath bleached for us her fairest dye ; One flower that bloomed is fallen,—later flower Will never shine as sweet against our sky, Fill this blank place, that fragrant scent restore.
Ah, painter take thy brush, for life is short, And use the colours left thee—they are fair— But carry still the hunger at thine heart For that which is not there.
Henceforth, upon thy palette and my life One unfilled place lies bare.
C. C. FRASER-TYTLER.
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