THE CACTUS SPECIOSISSIMUS.
Who hung thy beauty on such ragged stalk,
Thou glorious flower?
Who poured the richest hues,
In varying radiance, o'er thine ample brow,
And, like a mesh, those tissued stamens laid
Upon thy crimson lip?
Thou glorious flower!
Methinks it were no sin to worship thee,
Such passport hast thou from thy Maker's hand,
To thrill the soul. Lone, on thy leafless stem,
Thou bidd'st the queenly rose, with all her buds,
Do homage, and the greenhouse peerage bow
Their rainbow coronets.
Hast thou no thought?
No intellectual life? thou who can'st wake
Man's heart to such communings? no sweet word
With which to answer him? 'T would almost seem
