An excerpt from the beginning:
ALL round the year the changing suns and rains
Beat on men’s work—to wreck and to decay—
But nature builds more perfectly than they,
Her changing unchanged sea resists, remains.
All round the year new flowers spring up to shew
How gloriously life is more strong than death;
And in our hearts are seeds of love and faith,
Ah, sun and showers, be kind, and let them grow.
RESURGAM.
SWIFT pass the hours, or lengthened by our hearts
Uncertain measurement of time,
And when we dream the year has just awoke,
We wake to find her in her prime.
We sadden with the dying Autumn leaves,
Yet falling seeds their promise bring;
Through long dark Winter days we only wait
A resurrection in the coming Spring.
Within each hour the precious minutes lie
Like seeds awaiting Spring’s first breath,
God’s harvest-time shall show us if they bear
The flowers of life or death.
--Caris Brooke.
MARCH VIOLETS.
THIS busy, dusty wind that blows
Along the cruel streets,
Right to the heart of violets goes,
And robs them of their sweets.
And as along the cruel street
The keen wind robs the flowers,
So the cold kindness that we meet
Blights these poor hearts of ours.
But if you tend with warmth, you know,
Your violets, they give
Sweet scent again, as if to show
How glad they are to live.
We think if some one loved us too
Our hearts would break to prove
By all that we could say or do,
How glad we were to love!
--E. Nesbit.
