The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (11.1896)

The Closed Manuscript”

By Constance Finch
‘Alas ! that youth’s sweet scented manuscript should close.”
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

I
IN youth’s sweet scented manuscript we wrote,
All through the perfect, rosy summer days,-
And when the nightingale’s delicious note
Toned with love’s orison ; in reverent praise
We chronicled our joy with pencilled lays—
In that sweet scented manuscript we wrote.

ii
All night embalmed in rose leaves soft ’twas laid,
Till the pale parchment glowed with rose tints rare,
As fainting lips from which the blood has strayed
Glow when requickened ; and the perfume there
Tinged with its subtle essence all the air—
Since all night long embalmed so soft ’twas laid.

Alas !