THE POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
13i 
THE MOSS-ROSE. 
BY JOHN STERLING. 
Mossy rose on mossy stone, 
Flowering ’mid the ruins lone, 
I have learnt, beholding thee, 
Youth and Age may well agree. 
Baby germ of freshest hue, 
Out of ruin issuing new ; 
Moss a long laborious growth, 
And one stalk supporting both: 
Thus may still, while fades the past. 
Life come forth again as fast; 
Happy if the relics sere 
Deck a cradle, not a bier. 
Tear the garb, the spirit flies, 
And tne heart unshelter’d, dies; 
Kill within the nursling flower, 
Scarce the greon survives an hour. 
Ever thus together live, 
And to man a lesson give, 
Moss, the work of vanished years, 
Rose, that but to-day appears. 
