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• Love held to me a glistening laurel-leaf,
• And said: “The rose-tree & the apple-tree
• Have fruits to vaunt & flowers to lure the bee;
• And golden shafts are in the feathered sheaf
• Of the great harvest-marshal, the year's chief,
• Victorious Summer; yea, & 'neath warm sea
• Strange secret grasses lurk inviolably
• Between the filtering channels of sunk reef.

• All are my blooms; and all sweet blooms of love
• 10To thee I gave while Spring and Summer sang;
• But Autumn stops & listens, with some pang
• From those worse things the wind is moaning of.
• Only this laurel dreads no winter days;
• It is my last gift, brother; sing my praise.”