HE TOLD HIS LOVE IN FLOWERS.
11
Yet we were but children still,
And our love, tho' it seem'd so sweet,
Was well express'd by the types it bore,
For it pass'd away as fleet.
Tho' he brought me the Laurel leaf,
That changes but to die,
And the Primrose pale, and Amaranth,
Yet what did it signify?
For over his vaunted love
Suspicion's mood had power—
So I put a French Marigold in his hat,
That gaudy and jealous flower.
But his rootless passion shrank,
Like Jonah's gourd, away,
'Till the cold Chrysanthemum best reveal'd
The blight of its quick decay.
And he sail'd o'er the faithless sea
To a brighter clime than ours:—
So it faded away, that fickle love,
Like its alphabet of flowers.
