THE BUD.
(In the depth of winter tiny red may be found on points, the beginning of leaf-buds, the leafless trees.)
Touch'd with his finger the red And I saw the red bud there. Leaf-bud on a leafless tree.
Is the beating heart of Spring breath, In the dry bones of the Year."
And faith lay dead in his sorrow, No praying, no praise, I cried : Belief ; He took back all that He
gave. Tomorrow.
The elm stood black in mow, And black in the snow stood I : And thunght in my rage of woe, cry.
Death in my barren soul : "This was the text" (he said) And death in the elm-tree bare; "Of a sermon preach'd to me"; Then sunset flamed on the bole,
" Nothing I slay, but Death:
"Yea, for this tiny thing, Nor take, but I give again": Red speck, that I show you God vale to me under His here,
And He did not heal my pain; But in my wintry grief ; One was my all, and died ; And straight on my frozen
grave; There quicken'd the pulse— There crimson'd the bud—
In the Book of the Lord, The sky, and the earth, and sea, God laugh'd at his creature's I kiss'd the verse of His word,
The bud on a winter tree.
M. B.
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