FADED FLOWERS.

ARE these, then, the same that you wore on a day

When my love was as young and as fragile as they?

How spent is their perfume, their color how dead!

But my love has grown older and stronger instead.

And yet they were laid in your bosom; they rose

And fell with your breathing, in blissful repose;

But O, short-lived happiness! that which you cherished

Was but grass of the field, and already has perished.

Why favour the thing to which favour is death?

Why breathe on the flower that fades at your breath?

Give favour to me, to whom favour is sweet,

And raise the fond lover who kneels at your feet!

K.