"He did, and read it to me out loud. It felt strange but pleasant to have one's own thoughts spoken out in such words as those."
"And you brought away your Passion Flower with you?"
"Yes, but it is dying now; and this gives me thoughts too, which I wish somebody would write about. I should like to hear them read out."
I took up her book, and drawing a pencil from my pocket, I rapidly wrote down the following lines:—
"O wish her not to live again,
Thy dying passion flower,
For better is the calm of death
Than life's uneasy hour.
Weep not if through her withered stern
Is creeping dull decay;
Weep not, If ere the sun has set,
Thy nursling dies away.
The blast was keen, the winter snow
Was cold upon her breast;
And though the sun is shining now,
Still let thy flower rest.
Her tale is told; her slender strength
Has left her drooping form.
She cannot raise her bruised head
To face another storm.
Then gently lay her down to die,
Thy broken passion flower;
And let her close her troubled life
With one untroubled hour."
Alice read these lines as I wrote them. When I had finished, she shook her head gently, and said,—