Presage

AMIDST the vivid greenness of the spring
I marked a leaf of deep, impurpled cast;
Tender, soft-cheeked, already this young thing
Hinted of ripeness and the autumn blast.

The fabled Grææ from their birth were gray;
And out of life’s gay multitude there peer
Some fresh and childish faces that to-day
Wear the strange presage of their latest year.

Charlotte Fiske Bates.