Recompense

THE summer coaxed me to be glad,
Entreating with the primrose hue
Of sunset skies, with downward calls
From viewless larks, with winds that blew
The red-topped clover’s breath abroad,
And told the mirth of water-falls;
In vain! my heart would not be wooed
From the December of its mood.

But on a day of wintry skies
A withered rose slipped from my book;
And as I caught its faint perfume
The soul of summer straight forsook
The little tenement it loved,
And filled the world with song and bloom,
Missed, in their season, by my sense.
So found my heart late recompense.