"WHY loves my flower, the sweetest flower "Why, when the mead, the spicy vale, "The grove and genial garden call, "Will she her fragrant soul exhale, "Unheeded on the lonely wall? "For never sure was beauty born "To live in death's deserted shade! Come, lovely flower, my banks adorn, "My banks for life and beauty made." Thus PITY waked the tender thought, And by her sweet persuasion led, To seize the hermit-flower I sought, And bear her from her stony bed. I sought-but sudden on mine ear "From thee be far th' ungentle deed, "The honours of the dead to spoil, "Or take the sole remaining meed, "The flower that crowns their former toil! "Nor deem that flower the garden's foe, "Her honours on the lonely dead. "For this, obedient Zephyrs bear "Her light seeds round yon turret's mold, "And undispersed by tempests there, "They rise in vegetable gold. "Nor shall thy wonder wake to see "Oft they have been, and oft shall be "Where longs to fall that rifted spire, "As weary of th' insulting air; "The poet's thought, the warrior's fire, "The lover's sighs are sleeping there. "When that too shakes the trembling ground, "Borne down by some tempestuous sky, "And many a slumbering cottage round "Startles-how still their hearts will lie! "Of them who, wrapt in earth so cold, "Hast thou not seen some lover pale, "When evening brought the pensive hour, "Step slowly o'er the shadowy vale, "And stop to pluck the frequent flower? "Those flowers he surely meant to strew "On lost affection's lowly cell; 66 Though there, as fond remembrance grew, Forgotten, from his hand they fell. "Has not for thee the fragrant thorn "Been taught her first rose to resign? "With vain but pious fondness borne "To deck thy NANCY's honoured shrine! ""Tis NATURE pleading in the breast, "Fair memory of her works to find; 66 And when to fate she yields the rest, "She claims the monumental mind. "Why, else, the o'ergrown paths of time "Would thus the lettered sage explore, "With pain these crumbling ruins climb, "And on the doubtful sculpture pore? |