THE POETRY 0^ FLOWERS. 
29 
From their sighs ‘he wind caught a mournful tone, 
And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan. 
The garden, once fair, became cold and foul, 
Like the corpse of her who had been its soul: 
Which at first was lovely as if in sleep, 
Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap 
To make men tremble who never weep. 
Swift summer into the autumn flow’d, 
And frost in the mist of the morning rode, 
Though the noon-day sun look’d clear and bright, 
Mocking the spoil of the secret night. 
The rose-leaves, like flakes of crimson snow, 
Paved the turf and the moss below; 
The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan, 
Like the head and the skin of a dying man. 
And Indian plants, of scent and hue 
The sweetest that ever were fed on dew, 
Leaf after leaf, day by day, 
Were massed into the common clay. 
And the leaves, brown, yellow, and gray and red 
And white with the whiteness of what is dead, 
Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind pass’d; 
Their whistling noise made the birds aghast. 
