WILD FLOWERS. 21 
The Death of the Flowers. 
The melancholy days are come, 
The saddest of the year, 
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, 
And meadows brown and sear. 
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, 
The withered leaves lie dead; 
They rustle to the eddying gust, 
And to the rabbit’s tread. 
The robin and the wren are flown, 
And from the shrubs the jay, 
And from the wood-top calls the crow, 
Through all the gloomy day. 
Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, 
That lately sprang and stood 
In brighter light and softer airs, 
A beauteous sisterhood 1 
Alas! they all are in their graves; 
The gentle race of flowers 
