
POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
Diaphenia, like the spreading roses, 
That in thy sweets all sweets encloses, 
Fair sweet, how I do love thee ! 
I do love thee as each flower 
Loves the sun’s life-giving power; 
For dead, thy breath to life might move me! 
Diaphenia, like to all things blessed 
When all thy praises are expressed, 
Dear joy, how I do love thee ! 
As the birds do love the spring, 
Or the bees their careful king :-— 
Then in requite, sweet virgin, love me; 
THE ALPINE VIOLET, 
THE spring is come, the violet’s gone, 
The first-born child of the early sun ; 
With us she is but a winter flower, 
The snow on the hills cannot blast her bower, 
And she lifts up her dewy eye of blue, 
To the youngest sky of the self-same hue. 
But when the spring comes with her host 
Of flowers, that flower, beloved the most, 
Shrinks from the crowd, that may confuse 
Her heavenly odours and virgin hues, 
