Floral Poetry. 
37 
LOVE’S WREATH. 
10JHEN Love was a child, and went idling round 
" ^ ’Mong flowers, the whole summer’s day, 
One morn in the valley a bower he found, 
So sweet, it allured him to stay. 
O’erhead from the trees hung a garland fair, 
A fountain ran darkly beneath ; 
Twas Pleasure that hung up the flow’rets there ; 
Love knew it and jumped at the wreath. 
But Love didn’t know—and at his weak years, 
What urchin was likely to know?— 
That sorrow had made of her own salt tears, 
The fountain which murmured below. 
He caught at the wreath-—but with too much haste, 
As boys when impatient will do— 
It fell in those waters of briny taste, 
And the flowers were all wet through. 
Yet this is the wreath he wears night and day; 
And, though it all sunny appears 
With Pleasure’s own lustre, each leaf, they say, 
Still tastes of the fountain of tears. 
Aloore. 
