100 WILD FLOWERS. 
Precepts of Flowers. 
Flowers of the field, how meet ye seem 
Man’s frailty to portray, 
Blooming so fair in morning’s beam, 
Passing at eve away: 
Teach this, and, oh! though brief your reign, 
Sweet flowers, ye shall not live in vain. 
Go, form a monitory wreath 
For youth’s unthinking brow; 
Go, and to busy mankind breathe 
What most he fears to know; 
Go strew the path where age doth tread, 
And tell him of the silent dead. 
But whilst to thoughtless ones and gay, 
Ye breathe these truths severe, 
To those who droop in pale decay, 
Have ye no words of cheer ? 
Oh yes! ye weave a double spell, 
And death and life betoken well. 
