48 
THE POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
Around the fra’grant prize, 
With eager grasp thy little fingers close : 
What are the dreams that haunt thy soft repose f 
What radiance greets thine eyes ? 
For thou art smiling still; 
Art thou yet wandering in the quiet woods, 
Plucking th’ expanded cups and bursting buds, 
At thine uofetter’d will ? 
Or does some prophet voice 
Murmuring amidst thy dreams, instructive say, 
“ Prize well these flowers, for thou, beyond 
to-day, 
Shalt in their spells rejoice !” 
Yes! thou wilt learn their power, 
When, cherish’d not as now, thou stand’st alone, 
Compass’d by sweetly saddening memories, 
thrown 
Round thee by leaf or flower ! 
’Twill come ! as seasons come, 
The empire of the flowers, when these shall raise 
Round thee once more the forms of other days, 
Warm with the light of home ! 
Shapes thou no more may’st see ; 
The household hearth, the heart-enlisted prayer 
