Floral Poetry. 
39 
Bring flowers, pale flowers, o’er the bier to shed, 
A crown for the brow of the early dead ! 
For this through its leaves hath the Wild Rose burst, 
For this in the woods was the Violet nursed ! 
Though they smile in vain for what once was ours, 
1 hey are Love s last gift — bring ye flowers, pale flowers ! 
Bring flowers to the shrine where we kneel in prayer, 
They are Nature’s offering, their place is there! 
They speak of hope to the fainting heart, 
With a voice of promise they come and part, 
1 hey sleep in dust in the wintry hours, 
fl hey break forth in glory — bring flowers, bright flowers ! 
FRAGMENT. 
(TOME clothe the soil that feeds them, far diffused 
And lowly creeping, modest and yet fair, 
Like Virtue, thriving most where little seen ; 
Some, more aspiring, catch the neighbour shrub 
With clasping tendrils, and invest his branch, 
Else unadorned, with many a gay festoon 
And fragrant chaplet, recompensing well 
Ihe strength they borrow with the grace they lend. 
Cowper. 
