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THE POETRY OF FLCWERS. 
Where morning paints the orient skie 9 , 
Iler fingers burn with roseate dyes! 
And when, at length, with pale decline, 
Its florid beauties fade and pine, 
Sweet as in youth its balmy breath 
DiiTuse9 odour e’en in death ! 
O, whence could such a plant have sprung? 
Attend—for thus the tale is sung 
When humid from the silvery stream, 
Effusing beauty’s warmest beam, 
Venus appeared in flushing hues, 
Mellowed by Ocean’s briny dews ; 
When, in the starry courts above, 
The pregnant brain of mighty Jove 
Disclosed the nymph of azure glance! 
The nymph who shakes the martial lance! 
Then, then, in strange eventful hour, 
The earth produced an infant flower, 
Which sprung with blushing tinctures dresa’ 1 , 
And wanton’d o’er its parent breast. 
T he gods beheld this brilliant birth, 
And hail’d the Rose, the boon of earth . 
With nectar drops, a ruby tide. 
The sweetly orient buds they dyed, 
And bade them bloom, the flowers divine 
Of him who sheds the teeming vine ; 
And bade them on the sp«angled thorn 
Expand their bosoms to the morn. 
