the death of the flowers. 117 
Where are the flowers, the fair young flow¬ 
ers, that lately sprung and stood 
In brighter light and softer airs, a beaute¬ 
ous sisterhood ? 
Alas! they all are in their graves: the gen¬ 
tle race of flowers 
Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair 
and good of ours. 
The rain is falling where they lie ; but the 
cold November rain 
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the 
lovely ones again. 
The wind-flower and the violet, they perish¬ 
ed long ago, 
And the wild-rose and the orchis died amid 
the summer glow; 
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster 
in the wood, 
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in 
autumn beauty stood, 
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, 
as falls the plague on men, 
And the brightness of their smile was gone 
from upland, glade, and glen. 
And now, when comes the calm, mild day, 
as still such days will come, 
To call the squirrel and the bee from out 
their winter home, 
