Kate Seymour Maclean

    There is a splendid tropic flower which flings
        Its fiery disc wide open to the core–
            One pulse of subtlest fragrance–once a life
    That rounds a century of blossoming things
        And dies, a flower’s apotheosis: nevermore
            To send up in the sunshine, in sweet strife
    With all the winds, a fountain of live flame,
        A winged censer in the starlight swung
            Once only, flinging all its wealth abroad
    To the wide deserts without shore or name
        And dying, like a lovely song, once sung
        By some dead poet, music’s wandering ghost,
        Aeons ago blown oat of life and lost,
            Remembered only in the heart of God.