WARNED

They stood at the garden gate.

By the lifting of a lid

She might have read her fate

In a little thing he did.

He plucked a beautiful flower;

Tore it away from its place

On the side of the blooming bower;

And held it against his face.

Drank in its beauty and bloom,

In the midst of his idle talk;

Then cast it down to the gloom

And dust of the garden walk.

Ay, trod it under his foot,

As it lay in his pathway there;

Then spurned it away with his boot,

Because it bad ceased to be fair.

Ah! the maiden might have read

The doom of her young life then;

But she looked in his eyes instead,

And thought him the king of men.

She looked in his eyes and blushed,

She hid in his strong arms’ fold;

And the tale of the flower, crushed

And spurned, was once more told.