Floral Poetry. 
127 
1& 
But there thou art! thy foliage bright, 
Unchanged the mountain storm can brave; 
Thou, that wilt climb the loftiest height, 
Or deck the humblest grave ! 
’Tis still the same ! where’er we tread 
The wrecks of human power we see— 
The marvels of all ages fled, 
Left to decay and thee! 
And still let man his fabrics rear, 
August in beauty, grace, and strength ; 
Days pass—thou Ivy never sere !— 
And all is thine at length ! 
Mrs. Usmans. 
THE IVY. 
H AST thou seen, in Winter’s stormiest day, 
The trunk of a blighted Oak, 
Not dead, but sinking in slow decay 
Beneath Time’s resistless stroke, 
Round which a luxuriant Ivy had grown, 
And wreathed it with verdure no longer its own ? 
Perchance thou hast seen this sight, and then, 
As I at thy years might do, 
Passed carelessly by, nor turned again 
That scathed wreck to view ; 
But now I can draw from that mouldering tree 
Thoughts which are soothing and dear to me. 
Oh ! smile not, nor think it a worthless thing, 
If it be with instruction fraught; 
That which will closest and longest cling, 
Is alone worth a serious thought. 
Should aught be unlovely, which thus can shed 
Grace on the dying, and leaves on the dead? 
4 
Barton. 
