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o'er: 
flower, 
ileg, 
THE POETRY OF FLOWERS. 123 
FLOWERS FOR THE GRAVE. 
BY N. P. WILLIS. 
tvoom, gentle flowers’! my child would pass te 
heaven ! 
Ye look’d not for her yet with your soft eyes, 
Oh watchful ushers at Death’s narrow: door! 
But lo! while you delay to let her forth, 
Angels, beyond, stay for her! One long kiss 
Irom lips all pale with agony, and tears, 
Wrung after anguish had dried up with fire 
The eyes that wept them, were the cup of life 
Held as a welcome to her. Weep! oh mother } 
3ut not that from this cup of bitterness 
A cherub of the sky has turn’d away! 
One look upon thy face ere thou depart ! 
My daughter! It is soon to let thee go! 
My daughter! With thy birth has gush’d a spring 
I knew not of—filling my heart with tears, 
And turning with strange tenderness to thee— 
A love—oh God! it seems so—that must flow 
Far as thou fleest, and ’twixt heaven and me, 
Henceforward, be a bright and yearning chain 
Drawing me after thee! And so, farewell! 
"Tis aharsh world, in which affection knows 
No place to treasure up its loved and lost 
But the foul grave! ‘Thou, who so late wast 
sleeping 
Warr: in the close fold of a mother’s heart 







