A little leaf just in the forest's edge, <br />All summer long, had listened to the wooing <br />Of amorous brids that flew across the hedge, <br />Singing their blithe sweet songs for her undoing. <br />So many were the flattering things they told her, <br />The parent tree seemed quite too small to hold her. <br /> <br />At last one lonesome day she saw them fly <br />Across the fields behind the coquette summer, <br />They passed her with a laughing light good-bye, <br />When from the north, there strode a strange new comer; <br />Bold was his mien, as he gazed on her, crying, <br />'How comes it, then, that thou art left here sighing! ' <br /> <br />'Now by my faith though art a lovely leaf- <br />May I not kiss that cheek so fair and tender? ' <br />Her slighted heart welled full of bitter grief, <br />The rudeness of his words did not offend her, <br />She felt so sad, so desolate, so deserted, <br />Oh, if her lonely fate might be averted. <br /> <br />'One little kiss, ' he sighed, 'I ask no more-' <br />His face was cold, his lips too pale for passion. <br />She smiled assent; and then bold Frost leaned lower, <br />And clasped her close, and kissed in lover's fashion. <br />Her smooth cheek flushed to sudden guilty splendour, <br />Another kiss, and then sweet surrender. <br /> <br />Just for a day she was a beauteous sight, <br />The world looked on to pity and admire <br />This modest little leaf, that in a night <br />Had seemed to set the forest all on fire. <br />And then - this victim of a broken trust, <br />A withered thing, was trodden in the dust.<br /><br />Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-fatal-impress/
