CHAPTER XXX.
POETRY.
"Perhaps you will none of you agree with me," Lois said; "and I do not know much poetry; but there seems to me to run an undertone of lament and weariness through most of what I know. Now take the 'Death of the Flowers,'—that you were reading yesterday, Mrs. Barclay—
'The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.'
That is the tone I mean; a sigh and a regret."
"But the 'Death of the Flowers' is exquisite," pleaded Mrs. Lenox.
"Certainly it is," said Lois; "but is it gay?
'The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.'"
"How you remember it, Lois!" said Mrs. Barclay.
"But is not that all true?" asked Mr. Lenox.