THE POETRY OF FIOWERS. 
167 
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, bow’d with grief, 
Were the rose ne’er seen with a wither’d leaf? 
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, 
Where the heart and the rose are not faded flowers, 
