Though to my soul ability be less
Than 'tis to thee, O sweet anemone.

Teach me the secret of thy innocence,
That in simplicity I may grow wise,
Asking from Art no other recompense

Than the approval of her own just eyes;
So may I rise to some fair eminence,

Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies.

Teach me these things, through whose high knowledge, I,When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins, And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie

In that vast house, common to serfs and thanes,—

I shall not die, I shall not utterly die,

For beauty born of beauty-that remains.

Madison Cawein [1865-1914]

TO BLOSSOMS

FAIR pledges of a fruitful tree,

Why do ye fall so fast?

Your date is not so past

But you may stay yet here awhile
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.

What! were ye born to be

An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good-night?
'Twas pity Nature brought you forth
Merely to show your worth

And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne'er so brave:
And after they have shown their pride
Like you awhile, they glide

Into the grave.

Robert Herrick [1591-1674]

The Death of the Flowers 1459

"TIS THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER”

'Tis the last rose of summer,

Left blooming alone;

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,

To reflect back her blushes,

Or give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!

To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,

Go, sleep thou with them.

Thus kindly I scatter

Thy leaves o'er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,

When friendships decay,
And from Love's shining circle

The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,

O who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?

Thomas Moore [1779–1852]

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS

THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown

and sere.

Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie

dead;

They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread; The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy

day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer

glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook, in autumn beauty

stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the

plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no

more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side.
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the
leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one like that young friend of

ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. William Cullen Bryant [1794-1878]

GOD'S CREATURES

ONCE ON A TIME

ONCE on a time I used to dream

Strange spirits moved about my way,
And I might catch a vagrant gleam,
A glint of pixy or of fay;

Their lives were mingled with my own,
So far they roamed, so near they drew;
And when I from a child had grown,

I woke and found my dream was true.

For one is clad in coat of fur,

And one is decked with feathers gay;
Another, wiser, will prefer

A sober suit of Quaker gray:

This one's your servant from his birth,

And that a Princess you must please,
And this one loves to wake your mirth,
And that one likes to share your ease.

O gracious creatures, tiny souls!

You seem so near, so far away,

Yet while the cloudland round us rolls,
We love you better every day.

ON TURNING UP HER NEST WITH THE PLOW, NOVEMBER, 1785

WEE, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie,

O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa' sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen icker in a thrave

'S a sma' request;

I'll get a blessin' wi' the laive,
And never miss't!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin'!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's winds ensuin',
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin' fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till, crash! the cruel coulter passed
Out through thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men,
Gang aft a-gley,

An' lea'e us naught but grief an' pain,
For promised joy!