Poems (Botta)/To ****, With Flowers

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TO ****, WITH FLOWERS.


Go, ye sweet messengers,
  To that dim-lighted room,
Where lettered wisdom from the walls
  Sheds a delightful gloom;

Where sits in thought profound,
  One in the noon of life,
Whose flashing eye and fevered brow
  Tell of the inward strife;

Who in those wells of lore,
  Seeks for the pearls of truth,
And to Ambition’s fever dream
  Gives his repose and youth.

To him, sweet ministers,
  Ye shall a lesson teach,—
Go in your fleeting loveliness,
  More eloquent than speech.

Tell him in laurel wreaths
  No perfume e’er is found,
And that upon a crown of thorns
  Those leaves are ever bound.

Thoughts fresh as your own hues
  Bear ye to that abode,—
Speak of the sunshine and the sky,
  Of Nature and of God.