Forgotten Songs.

There is a splendid tropic flower which flings
    Its fiery disc wide open to the core--
        One pulse of subtlest fragrance--once a life
That rounds a century of blossoming things
    And dies, a flower's apotheosis: nevermore
        To send up in the sunshine, in sweet strife
With all the winds, a fountain of live flame,
    A winged censer in the starlight swung
        Once only, flinging all its wealth abroad
To the wide deserts without shore or name
    And dying, like a lovely song, once sung
    By some dead poet, music's wandering ghost,
    Aeons ago blown oat of life and lost,
        Remembered only in the heart of God.