THE POESY OP FLOWERS. 261 



DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. 



The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, 



Of wailing wind*, and naked woods, and meadows brown and men, 



Heaped in the hollow of the grove, the withered leaves lie deudj 



They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbit's tread. 



The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay, 



And from the wood top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day. 



Where are the flower*, the young fair dowers, that lately sprung and stootf, 



In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood .' 



Alas ! they all are in their graves ; the gentle race of Mowers 



Are lying in their lonely beds, with the (air and good of ours. 



The rain Is falling where they lie : but the cold November rail 



Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again. 



The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long agu, 



And the wild-rose and the orchis died, amid the summer glow , 



tint on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, 



And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood, 



Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falU the plague on men, 



And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade and glen. 



And now, when cornea the calm mild day, as still such days will coma, 



To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home j 



When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the tree* are still, 



And twinkle In the smoky light the waters of the rill, 



The south wind searches for the flowers, whose fragrance late he bore, 



And sighs to find them in the wood and by the streams no more. 



And then I think of one who In her youthful beauty died, 

 The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side t 

 In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf; 

 And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief t 

 Yet not unmeet It was that one, like that young friend of oun, 

 0o gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flower* 



Bryant 



