42 PRECEPTS OF FLOWERS. 
Teach this, and, oh ! though brief your 
reign, 
Sweet flowers ye shall not live in vain. 
Go, form a monitory wreath 
For youth’s unthinking brow ; 
Go, and to busy mankind breathe 
What most he fears to know; 
Go, strew the path where age doth tread. 
And tell him of the silent dead. 
But whilst to thoughtless ones and gay, 
Ye breathe these truths severe, 
To those who droop in pale decay, 
Have ye no words of cheer ? 
Oh yes ! ye weave a double spell, 
And death and life betoken well. 
Go, then, where wrapt in fear and gloom, 
Fond hearts and true are sighing, 
And deck with emblamatic bloom 
The pillow of the dying ; 
And softly speak, nor speak in vain, 
Of the long sleep and broken chain ; 
And say, that He who from the dust 
Recalls the slumbering flower, 
Will surely visit those who trust 
His mercy and his power; 
