Sweet Verbenas

Your faces all familiar are, Sweet verbenas blooming fair. I love to come and watch you By the fountain here. Your white bloom like the winter snow And red of deepest hue, Your pink like sunset's early glow, And dark transcendant blue. Dear flowers, all, you remind me Of moments long gone by, Of childhood's happy hours Beneath a southern sky.

For once in those dear days I made a flower bed Of sweet verbenas, like you dear, But now they all are dead. I'm wandering, far away, An exile from my home, But dream of distant days Before I left to roam. Sweet verbenas blooming fair Here by the fountain white, Upon your beauty rare I gaze in sad delight.