FADED FLOWERS.
I
Farewell, ye perish'd flowers
That on the cold ground lie;
How gay ye smiled
'Mid the brown wild,
'Neath summer's painted sky;—
Pass'd hath your bloom away;
Your stalks are sere and bent:
On the howling blast
The rain sweeps past,
From the dim firmament.
II
I think me of your pride,
When Zephyr came with Spring;
Then sigh to know
What wreck and woe
A few brief months may bring!
Emblems of human fate,
Ye say—“Though bright and fair
Life's morning be,
Its eve may see
The clouds of grief and care!”
III
In you I scan the fate
Life's sunniest hopes have met,
When Youth's bright noon,
(Alas! how soon!)
In manhood's twilight set—
Yes! joy by joy decay'd
As ye did fade, sweet blooms,
Leaving behind,
Upon the wind,
A while your soft perfumes.
IV
As waned each blossom bright,
So doom'd were to depart
Friend after friend—
And each to rend
A fibre from the heart:
Green Spring again shall bid
Your boughs with bloom be crown'd;
But alas! to Man,
In earth's brief span,
No second spring comes round!
V
Yes! friends who clomb Life's hill
Together, long ago,
Are parted, and
Their fatherland
No more their places know!
We see them not, nor hear them,
Among the garden bowers;
They have pass'd away
In bright decay,
Like you, ye perish'd flowers!
VI
Mourn not—we meet again,
Although we meet not here;
Turn ye above,
Where Faith and Love
Taste Heaven's eternal year:—
For though Time's winter bows
The grey head to the clod,
Dust goes to dust,
But (as we trust)
The Spirit back to God!
