THE POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
143 
For soon shall ye awakened find 
The joys of life’s sad thorny way, hut fading flowerets 
of a day 
Cut down by every wind. 
Ask me why I send you here, 
This firstling of the infant year ; 
Ask me why I send to you 
This Primrose all bepearled with dew; 
I straight will whisper in your ears, 
The sweets of love are washed with tears. 
Ask me why this flower doth show 
So yellow, green, and sickly too; 
Ask me why the stalk is weak, 
And bending, yet it doth not break ; 
I must tell you, these discover 
What doubts and fears are in a lover. 
Carew' 
RED AND WHITE ROSES.— Warmth of Heart. 
Carew, who lived 1580—1639, has thus interpreted 
the language of the Red and White Rose together 
Read in these Roses the sad story 
Of my hard fate, and your own glory; 
In the white you may discover 
The paleness of a fainting lover; 
In the red the flames still feeding 
On my heart with fresh wounds bleeding. 
The white will tell you how I languish, 
And the red express my anguish, 
The white my innocence displaying, 
The red my martyrdom betraying : 
