"La Fleur d'Or (Sonnet)"
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La Fleur d'Or
(sonnet)Eager Paris systematically choses
The object of its joys and tears;
Fashion and taste, presiding over the baptism,
Have chose this winter a Queen of flowers.
Of innumerable variations, she is the theme,
Her merest trace runs the gamut of colours;
And the year eighteen ninety adorns in chrysanthemum,
The future smiling at bygone pains.
The rose is the flower of love, its thorn is bitter;
The chrysanthemum is soft, but not ephemeral,
It stays when the rest have gone; it watches while the rest sleep.
It is the flower of friendship; in cold and sombre days.
When life's evenings stretch out their shadows,
Happy is the home where smiles the flower of gold.
Arnould Rogier