The Venetian Bracelet, The Lost Pleiad, A History of the Lyre, and Other Poems/The Wreath
THE WREATH.
Nay, fling not down those faded flowers,
Too late they're scatter'd round;
And violet and rose-leaf lie
Together on the ground.
How carefully this very morn
Those buds were cull'd and wreathed!
And, mid the cloud of that dark hair,
How sweet a sigh they breathed!
And many a gentle word was said
Above their morning dye,—
How that the rose had touch'd thy cheek,
The violet thine eye.
Methinks, if but for memory,
I should have kept these flowers;
Ah! all too lightly does thy heart
Dwell upon vanish'd hours.
Already has thine eager hand
Stripp'd yonder rose-hung bough;
The wreath that bound thy raven curls
Thy feet are on it now.
That glancing smile, it seems to say
"Thou art too fanciful:
What matters it what roses fade,
While there are more to cull?"
Ay, I was wrong to ask of thee
Such gloomy thoughts as mine:
Thou in thy Spring, how shouldst thou dream
Of Autumn's pale decline?
Young, lovely, loved,—oh! far from thee
Life's after-dearth and doom;
Long ere thou learn how memory clings
To even faded bloom!