They stood at the garden gate. <br />By the lifting of a lid <br />She might have read her fate <br />In a little thing he did. <br /> <br /> <br />He plucked a beautiful flower, <br />Tore it away from its place <br />On the side of the blooming bower, <br />And held it against his face. <br /> <br /> <br />Drank in its beauty and bloom, <br />In the midst of his idle talk; <br />Then cast it down to the gloom <br />And dust of the garden walk. <br /> <br /> <br />Ay, trod it under his foot, <br />As it lay in his pathway there; <br />Then spurned it away with his boot, <br />Because it had ceased to be fair. <br /> <br /> <br />Ah! the maiden might have read <br />The doom of her young life then; <br />But she looked in his eyes instead, <br />And thought him the king of men. <br /> <br /> <br />She looked in his eyes and blushed, <br />She hid in his strong arms' fold; <br />And the tale of the flower, crushed <br />And spurned, was once more told.<br /><br />Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/warned/
