204 THB POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
A COMPARISON. 
BY J. H. WIFFEN. 
—As yon flower, with hyacinthine bells, 
Playful as light, which shiver’d by my tread. 
Is turn’d to dust and darkness—to all else 
It is as though it was not; swiftly sped 
Spoil o’er its bruised buds which blossomed 
A blending of all sweetness—what now ? 
A few years hence, and over this bent head, 
Dashing all life and gladness from the brow, 
The scythe of Time shall pass, and Ruin’s silen 
Dlough. 
But the Spring, 
Fair as Aurora in her purple cloud, 
Descends and wakens in their slumbering, 
Life from the ashes, beauty from the shroud. 
And speaks of immortality aloud 
To mourning man ; and thus the flower I trod 
To its maternal dust shall issue proud 
Ofits new birth, and on a greener sod 
Bow to the dcd ying winds—a sign to mat frotr 
God, 
