The Last Chrysanthemum
Why should this flower delay so longTo show its tremulous plumes?Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,When flowers are in their tombs.
Through the slow summer, when the sunCalled to each frond and whorlThat all he could for flowers was being done,Why did it not uncurl?
It must have felt that fervid callAlthough it took no heed,Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,And saps all retrocede.
Too late its beauty, lonely thing,The season’s shine is spent,Nothing remains for it but shiveringIn tempests turbulent.
Had it a reason for delay,Dreaming in witlessnessThat for a bloom so delicately gayWinter would stay its stress?
—I talk as if the thing were bornWith sense to work its mind;Yet it is but one mask of many wornBy the Great Face behind.
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