Lines.
37
No fear of storm, or cold, or bitter frost,
Shadows the flowerets when their sun is nigh.
And all our pleasant haunts of earthly love
Are nurseries to those gardens of the air;
And his far-darting eye, with starry beam,
Watcheth the growing of his treasures there.
We call them ours, o'erswept with selfish tears,
O'erwatched with restless longings night and day;
Forgetful of the high, mysterious right
He holds to bear our cherished plants away.
But when some sunny spot in those bright fields
Needs the fair presence of an added flower,
down sweeps a starry angel in the night:
At morn, the rose has vanished from our bower.
Where stood our tree, our flower, there is a grave!
Blank, silent, vacant, but in worlds above,
