Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
The Bergamot
By William Wallace Harney (18311912)W
But just one withering flower;
We had no other lives to live,
But just that sweet half-hour,—
So small, so sweet, its freight of musk
Made fragrant all life’s after-dusk.
With fairy fingers silken shot,
Till moonlight’s milky thread were run,
In the scented, creamy bergamot,
That gave one dear, remembered hour,
The fragrance of the orange-flower.
A memory, like its faint perfume,
More dear than all life’s loss and gains
About a withering orange-bloom,
Whose fading leaves of dusky green
Do show how sweet life might have been.