Margaret deLaughter: Toward Evening

“The poppies just outside my door
Still flaunt their crimson loveliness.
How can they blossom any more,
Now I have lost my happiness?

Not any grief of mine can mar
The beauty of this tranquil weather.
Each evening, with the first pale star,
Comes that same thrush we loved together,

And pours gold notes from every bough
Of his old sacred apple-tree.
But he has lost his magic now—
He cannot sing you back to me.”