300 
DIRGE OF FLOWERS. 
Last tears, in silence shed. 
Last words, half uttered, 
Last looks of dying friends ! 
\Y ho but would fain compress 
A life into a day ; 
The last day spent with one, 
YVho, ere the morrow’s sun. 
Must leave us, and for aye ? 
O, precious, precious, moments ! 
Pale flowers! ye’re types of those— 
The saddest! sweetest! dearest! 
Because, like those, the nearest 
Is an eternal close. 
Pale flowers !—Pale perishing flowers ! 
I woo your gentle breath ; 
I leave the summer rose 
For younger, blither brows ; 
Tell me of change and death ! 
The same. —miss bowles. 
How happily, how happily the flowers die 
away! 
Oh, could we but return to earth as easily as 
they ! 
