36 
THE POETRY OF FLOWERS 
Oh ! there is naught in nature bright, 
Where roses do not shed their light! 
When morning paints the orient skies, 
Her fingers burn with roseate dyes; 
The nymphs display the rose’s charms, 
It mantles o’er their graceful arms; 
Through Cytherea’s form it glows, 
And mingles with the living snows. 
The rose distils a healing balm, 
The beating pulse of pain to calm; 
Preserves the cold inurned clay, 
And mocks the vestige of decay; 
And when at length, in pain decline, 
Its florid beauties fade and pine, 
Sweet as in youth, its balmy breath 
Diffuses odour e’en in death ! 
Oh! whence could such a plant have sprung ? 
Attend—for thus the tale is sung: — 
When, humid, from the silvery stream, 
Effusion beauty’s warmest beams, 
Venus appeared in flushing hues, 
Mellowed by ocean’s briny dews; 
When, in the starry courts above, 
The pregnant brain of mighty Jove 
Disclosed the nymph of azure glance, 
The nymph who shakes the martial lance! 
Then, then, in strange eventful hour, 
The earth produced an infant flower, 
Which sprung, with blushing tinctures drest, 
And wantoned o’er its parent breast. 
The gods beheld this brilliant birth, 
And hailed the Rose, the boon of earth ! 
