THE MOSS-ROSE. 
THE MOSS-ROSE. 
Mossy rose on mossy stone, 
Flowering ’mid the ruins lone, 
I have learnt, beholding thee, 
Youth and age may well agree. 
Baby germ of freshest hue, 
Out of ruin issuing new; 
Moss a long laborious growth. 
And one stalk supporting both. 
Thus may still, while fades the past. 
Life come forth again as fast; 
Happy if the relics sere 
Deck a cradle, not a bier. 
Tear the garb, the spirit flies, 
And the heart, unshelter’d, dies; 
Kill within the nursling flower. 
Scarce the green survives an hour. 
Ever thus together live, 
And to man a lesson give, 
Moss, the work of vanish’d years, 
Rose, that but to-day appears. 
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