Floral Poetry. 
197 
“ In thanks for all the good 
Promised things, which shall be given 
And sung ever up in heaven ! 
By poets understood— 
For the sound of seraphs moving 
Through the hidden depths of loving ! 
“ For life, so lonely vain, 
“ For sights of things away, 
Through fissures of the clay- 
For death, which breaks the chain- 
For this sense of present sweetness, 
And this yearning to completeness !” 
Elizabeth B. Browning. 
THE HALF-BLOWN ROSE. 
Y OOK, now, now we esteem the half-blown Rose, 
If 
The image of thy blush and Summer’s honour ; 
Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclose 
That full of beauty time bestows upon her. 
No sooner spreads her glories to the air, 
But straight her wide-blown pomp comes to decline 3 
She then is scorned that late adorned the fair; 
So fade the roses of those cheeks of thine; 
No April can revive thy withered flowers, 
Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now ; 
Swift, speedy time, feathered with flying hours, 
Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow : 
Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain, 
But love now whilst thou may’st be loved again. 
Daniel. 
