FAREWELL TO THE FLOWERS IN AUTUMN. 215
And dear ye were to him who died, when summer round ye play'd,
That good old man, who look'd with love on all which God had made ;
Who, when his first, familiar friends, sank down in dream- less rest,
Took nature's green and living things more closely to his breast.
My blessed sire, we bore his chair at early summer-morn,
That he might sit among your bowers, and see your blossoms born;
While meek and placid smiles around his reverend fea- tures play'd,
The language of that better clime, where you no more shall fade.
Shall I see you once again, sweet flowers, when spring
returneth fair,
To strew her breathing incense upon the balmy air ? Will you lift to me your infant heads ? For me, with
fragrance swell ? Alas, why should I ask you thus, what is not yours to tell.
I know, full well, before your buds shall hail the vernal
sky, That many a younger, brighter brow beneath the clods
must lie ;
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