192 
THE MORAL OF FLOWERS. 
Each flower some fairy legend owns to joy or sorrow 
dear, 
Or simply beautiful, just sucli as wins gay childhood’s 
ear; 
But both to aged and to young, from cot to lordly hall, 
Thou, thou hast that to tell should hold each human 
heart in thrall. 
Each flower some chosen emblem is ; one is for beauty’s 
bloom ; 
Another friendship claims ; a third sheds fragrance o’er 
the tomb; 
But link’d with holy memories, to penitence how dear! 
Thy shrine is aye the broken heart, thy dew contrition’s 
tear. 
Would I such shrine could offer thee, and on thy pale 
leaves shed 
Those sadly sorrowing tears which fall but when the 
heart has bled, 
But, ah! like sealed fount, that heart withholds the tri¬ 
bute due, 
Though lesser sorrows find it still to gentle pity true. 
