232 
THE POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
I never see these flowers but they 
Send back my memory, far away, 
To years long past, and many a day 
Else perish’d long ago ! 
They bring my childhood’s years again— 
Our garden-fence, I see it plain, 
With ficaries like a golden rain 
Shower’d on the earth below. 
A happy child, I leap, I run, 
And memories come back, one by one, 
Like swallows with the summer sun, 
To their old haunts of joy ! 
A happy child, once more I stand, 
With my kind sister, hand in hand, 
And hear those tones, so sweet, so bland, 
That never brought annoy ! 
I hear again my mother’s wheel, 
Her hand upon my head I feel ; 
Her kiss, which every grief could hea., 
Is on my cheek even now; 
I see the dial overhead ; 
I see the porch o’er which was led, 
The pyracantha green and red, 
And jessamine’s slender bough. 
I see the garden-thicket’s shade, 
Where all the summer long we play’d, 
A nd gardens set, and houses made, 
Our early work and late; 
