Page:Poems Piatt.djvu/73

"And who was her lover?" Why, that may be he, there,
 In the other picture glimmering nigh—
Yes, the handsome and wretched man you see there,
 Falling against his sword to die.

Will he die for her, do you say? (Ah, will he?)
 No doubt he has often told her so!
"Did it bloom far away, this crumbling lily?"
 Very far and so long ago.

And who gave it to me?
And who gave it to me?———So the withered story
 I've dreamed by the twilight all this while,
For some vanished blossom's day of glory,
 Is your truth, my Lily of the Nile.

For the beautiful woman is slowly dying
 Of a snake as plain as this to my sight;
And her lover who gave her this flower is lying
 On the edge of a sword to-night.