William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920.

Frimaire

DEAREST, we are like two flowers

Blooming last in a yellowing garden,

A purple aster flower and a red one

Standing alone in a withered desolation.

The garden plants are shattered and seeded,

One brittle leaf scrapes against another,

Fiddling echoes of a rush of petals.

Now only you and I nodding together.

Many were with us; they have all faded.

Only we are purple and crimson,

Only we in the dew-clear mornings,

Smarten into color as the sun rises.

When I scarcely see you in the fiat moonlight,

And later when my cold roots tighten,

I am anxious for the morning,

I cannot rest in fear of what may happen.

You or I—and I am a coward.

Surely frost should take the crimson.

Purple is a finer color,

Very splendid in isolation.

So we nod above the broken

Stems of flowers almost rotted.

Many mornings there cannot be now

For us both. Ah, Dear, I love you!

Scribner’s Magazine