Sonnet LIX: Love’s Last Gift

Love to his singer held a glistening leaf,
     And said: “The rose-tree and the apple-tree
      Have fruits to vaunt or flowers to lure the bee;
And golden shafts are in the feathered sheaf
Of the great harvest-marshal, the year’s chief,
      Victorious summer; aye, and ’neath warm sea
      Strange secret grasses lurk inviolably
Between the filtering channels of sunk reef. 

All are my blooms; and all sweet blooms of love
      To thee I gave while Spring and Summer sang;
      But Autumn stops to listen, with some pang
From those worse things the wind is moaning of.
     Only this laurel dreads no winter days:
     Take my last gift; thy heart hath sung my praise.”