Poetry Archives

They stood at the garden gate.
   By the lifting of a lid
She might have read her fate
   In a little thing he did.

He plucked a beautiful flower;
   Tore it away from its place
On the side of the blooming bower;
   And held it against his face.

Drank in its beauty and bloom,
   In the midst of his idle talk;
Then cast it down to the gloom
   And dust of the garden walk.

Ay, trod it under his foot,
   As it lay in his pathway there;
Then spurned it away with his boot,
   Because it bad ceased to be fair.

Ah! the maiden might have read
   The doom of her young life then;
But she looked in his eyes instead,
   And thought him the king of men.

She looked in his eyes and blushed,
   She hid in his strong arms’ fold;
And the tale of the flower, crushed
   And spurned, was once more told.