19
GRATITUDE.
LINES WRITTEN ON PLANTING SLIPS OF GERANIUM AND CONSTANCY NEAR THE GRAVE OF A VENERABLE FRIEND.
LITTLE plant of slender form,
Fair, and shrinking from the storm,
Lift thou here thine infant head,
Bloom in this uncultur'd bed.
Thou, of firmer spirit too,
Stronger texture, deeper hue,
Dreading not the winds that cast
Cold snows o'er the frozen waste,
Rise, and shield it from the blast.
Shrink not from the awful shade
Where the bones of men are laid;
Short like thine their transient date,
Keen has been the scythe of fate.
Forth like plants in glory drest
They came upon the green earth's breast,
Sent forth their roots to reach the stream,
Their buds to meet the rising beam,
They drank the morning's balmy breath,
And sunk at eve in withering death.
