The Lily And The Dew-Drop

Deep in a cell of darkest green, Rayless and murky with unbroken gloom, With downcast head and shrinking, modest mien, A lily of the valley shed her rare perfume, Breathed softly, as a sea shell’s murmur, from her bloom An odor so exquisite, none can tell, If ’tis an odor or a whispered sigh That like the dying echoes of a bell Falls on the raptured sense so dreamily, The soul swoons in the tearful clasp of memory.

So when an old man hears a harvest song He used to sing, or smells the new-mown hay, A host of saddened recollections throng The dusty chambers of his heart, and play Upon the cobwebs there a soft Æolian lay.

(Unfinished.)

LINES,