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The Poetry of Flowers. 
89 
Fair myrtle tree, 
Thy blossoms lie low, 
But green above them 
Thy branches grow; 
Like a buried love, or a vanished joy, 
Linked into memories none destroy. 
Faded flowers, 
Sweet faded flowers !— 
Fair frail records 
Of Eden’s bowers; 
In a world where sorrow and wrong bear sway, 
Why should ye linger ?—away ! away !— 
What were the emblems 
Pride to stain, 
Might ye your glorious 
Crowns retain? 
And what for the young heart, bowed with grief, 
Were the Rose ne'er seen with a withered leal! 
Ye bloom to tell us 
What once hath been ; 
What yet shall in heaven 
Again be seen ; 
Ye die, that man in his strength may learn 
How vain the hopes in his heart that burn. 
Many in form, 
And bright in hue ! 
I know your fate— 
But the earth to strew— 
And my soul flies on to immortal bowers, [flowers. 
Where the heart and the Rose are not faded 
