Carnations in Winter

YOUR carmine flakes of bloom to-night
The fire of wintry sunsets hold ;
Again in dreams you burn to light
A far Canadian garden old.

The blue north summer over it
Is bland with long ethereal days ;
The gleaming martins wheel and flit
Where breaks your sun down orient ways.

There, when the gradual twilight falls,
Through quietudes of dusk afar,
Hermit antiphonal hermit calls
From hills below the first pale star.

Then, in your passionate love's foredoom,
Once more your spirits stir the air,
And you are lifted through the gloom
To warm the coils of her dark hair !