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TRUE WORTH.

This is no place for envyings and strife,
Where Death stalks to and fro
With careless tread among the flowers of life
And bends them low.

No place for bigotry and high conceit,
Where Time with ruthless hand
Lays low the forest monarchs at his feet,
And all that man has planned.

We may fall short of all our highest aims,
But God alone can see
Deeper than he who censures us and blames
All that we tried to be.


MANZANITA BLOOMS

Not fairer the blossoms of April days,
Or June aweary with gay bouquets,
Or Autumn glowing with leaves and berries,
Or faint with the fragrance of lighted rooms,
Than the honeyed garland that Nature carries
In the heart of the Western Februaries
When the manzanita blooms.
But there on the sunny upland slopes,
And crowning the rocky hills,
Where the mountain oak tosses grey moss plumes,
They open, the sweet manzanita blooms.
And soon shall their fragrant pink-tipped flakes
Weight the bending branch where the bird-song wakes,
'Till the hill is white with their fragrant snows,
And the first March wind through the tree-top blows.

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