POETRY OP FLOWERS. 
73 
I can but weep to see them bloom 
At morning- still so freshly fair, 
At evening withering on thy tomb; 
Whilst I who placed them there 
Can read thy emblem in their doom,—• 
So pure—so loved — so early lost — • 
Departing in life’s brightest bloom 
Ere grief thy heart had crost! 
I turn away with many a sigh, 
For here there breathes some holy spell: 
Too prized to live—too loved to die—• 
How can I say farewell! 
STANZAS. 
Why, when the souls we loved are fled, 
Plant we their turf with flowers ; 
Their blossomed fragrance there to shed 
In sunshine and in showers ? 
Why bid, when these are passed away, 
The laurel flourish o’er their clay, 
In winter’s blighting hours: 
To spread a leaf for ever green, 
Ray of the life that once hath been ? 
It is — that we would thence create 
Bright memory of the past, 
And give their imaged forms a date, 
