26 DROPS FROM FLORA’S CUP. 
THE IVY. 
BARTON. 
Hast thou seen, in winter’s stormiest day, 
The trunk of a blighted oak, 
Hot dead, but sinking in slow decay 
Beneath time’s resistless stroke, 
Round which a luxuriant ivy had grown, 
And wreathed it with verdure no longer its own ? 
Perchance thou hast seen this sight; and then, 
As I at thy years might do. 
Passed carelessly by, nor turned again 
That scathed wreck to view. 
But now I can draw from that mouldering tree, 
Thoughts wliich are soothing and dear to me. 
O, smile not! nor think it a worthless thing, 
If it be with instruction fraught; 
That which will closest and longest cling 
Is alone worth a serious thought! 
Should aught be unlovely which thus can shed 
Grace on the dying, and leaves on the dead ? 
-Catch the neighbor shrub 
With clasping tendrils, and invest his branch, 
Else unadorned, with many a gay festoon 
And fragrant chaplet, recompensing well 
The strength they borrow with the grace they lend. 
COWPER. 
