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Duganne's Poetical Works

Autograph edition. Seventy-five Copies

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386

TOMB-FLOWERS.

WHAT boots it to the dead—
The marble mausoleum's sculptured woe,
That mocks the cold and silent one below—
The labored epitaph—chiselled praise
That greets so chillingly the mourner's gaze—
What boots it to the dead?
What recks the broken heart
Of all the tinsel pride, the splendor bright,
That falls like ice upon the mourner's sight?
Of all the pomp, the glitter, and the glare,
Of life's brief pleasures, fanciful as fair,
What recks the broken heart?
Oh! rear no massy tomb!
But let the friends—the loving ones—strew flowers!
The roses that I loved in life's sad hours;
And let their tears, if, haply, tears be shed,
Bedew the roses on my lowly bed—
But rear no massy tomb!

387

Oh! deck my grave with flowers!
The cold, dark stone would weigh my spirit down;
'Twould sink like Love beneath Misfortune's frown;
But flowers—sweet flowers—deep-rooted in my heart,
Would have their life in me, and be of me a part.
Then deck my grave with flowers!