BLITHE summer blossom, born too late, <br />Wilt make my desert garden fair? <br />Lo Winter's hand is on the gate, <br />His breath is in the curdling air. <br /> <br />Still yesterweek, but yesterweek, <br />Thou hadst, unfolding in warm light, <br />Spread ripening to the crimson streak <br />And seed to make the next year bright. <br /> <br />But now there fall the latter rains, <br />The chills that brown the ferns are come; <br />Southward, above the shivering plains, <br />The eddying swallows hasten home. <br /> <br />Oh flower too frail, too late of birth, <br />There is no sun for such as thou: <br />Droop down upon the barren earth; <br />What boots it to have blossomed now?<br /><br />Augusta Davies Webster<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/belated/
