THREE FLOWER PETALS.

What saw I yesterday walking apart

In a leafy place where the cattle wait?

Something to keep for a charm in my heart —

A little sweet girl in a garden gate.

Laughing she lay in the gold sun's might,

And held for a target to shelter her,

In her little soft fingers, round and white,

The gold-rimmed face of a sunflower.

Laughing she lay on the stone that stands

For a rough-hewn step in that sunny place,

And her yellow hair hung down to her hands,

Shadowing over her dimpled face.

Her eyes like the blue of the sky, made dim

With the might of the sun that looked at her,

Shone laughing over the serried rim,

Golden set, of the sunflower.

Laughing, for token she gave to me

Three petals out of the sunflower;—

When the petals are withered and gone, shall be

Three verses of mine for praise of her,

That a tender dream of her face may rise

And lighten me yet in another hour,

Of her sunny hair and her beautiful eyes,

Laughing over the gold sunflower.