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FABLES OF FLOWERS. 
Yet their departing breath > 
Was sweeter in the blast of death, 
Than all the lavish fragrance of the time. 
Amidst this gorgeous train. 
Our truant star shone forth in vain ; 
Though in a wreath of periwinkle, 
Through whose fine gloom it strove to twinkle, 
It seem’d no bigger to the view 
Than the light spangle in a drop of dew. 
—Astronomers may shake their polls, 
And tell me,—every orb that rolls 
Through heaven’s sublime expanse 
Is sun or world, whose speed and size 
Confound the stretch of mortal eyes. 
In Nature’s mystic dance : 
It may be so 
For aught I know, 
Or aught indeed that they can show; 
Yet till they prove what they aver. 
From this plain truth I will not stir, 
—A star’s a star !—but when I think 
Of sun or world, the star I sink ; 
Wherefore in verse, at least in mine. 
Stars like themselves, in spite of fate, shall 
shine. 
Now, to return (for we have wandered far,) 
To what was nothing but a simple star; 
