QUESTION AND ANSWER.

Love you seek for, presupposes

Summer heat and sunny glow.

Tell me, do you find moss-roses

Budding, blooming in the snow?

Snow might kill the rose-tree's root —

Shake it quickly from your foot,

Lest it harm you as you go.

From the ivy where it dapples

A grey ruin, stone by stone,

Do you look for grapes or apples,

Or for sad green leaves alone?

Pluck the leaves off, two or three —

Keep them for morality

When you shall be safe and gone.