Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/33

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BRIEF LIFE
Brief as the creaming waves that break and run Back to the deep, as butterflies that flitter From flower to flower, as icicles that glitterTheir keen defiance to the fatal sun;Brief as from tiny breast of cinnamon The bluebird's warble, or the swallow's twitter, This life of ours. Though it be sweet or bitter,'Tis but a wing-beat and the flight is done.
Yet on the lip the billow's windy froth Tastes of the sea; summer is in the callOf bird, in airy motion of the moth. There sparkles in that fragile crystal lance The miracle of light. 'Tis but a glance And we are gone; yet the least life holds all.
The Yale ReviewKatharine Lee Bates


WINTER BURIAL
Earth, will you be kind to her?I give her back . . .
Will your clumsy ricks and clayBreak her silk and pearl and ivoryTo trash? . . .
. . . or shall I see a little creeping flushof first flowers along that slopenext Spring?
The North American ReviewHenry Bellamann

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