FLOWERS! fresh flowers, with your fragrance free,
Have you come in your queenly robes to me?
Me hve you sought from your far retreat,
With your greeting lips and your dewy feet,
And the upward glance of your radiant eye,
Like angel-guests from a purer sky ?
But where did ye hide when the frost drew near,
And your many sisiters were blanched with fear?
Where did ye hide? with a blush as bright
As ye wore amid Eden's vales of light,
Ere the wile of the tempter its bliss had shamed,
Or the terrible sword o'er its gateway flamed.
Flowers, sweet flowers, with your words of cheer,
Thanks to the friend who hath sent you here;
For this, may her blossoms of varied dye
Be the fairest and first 'neath a vernal sky,
And she be led, by their whisper'd lore,
To the love of that land where they fade no more.
