Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/The Heliotrope

The Heliotrope.

There is a flower whose modest eye Is turned with looks of light and love,Who breathes her softest, sweetest sigh, Whene'er the sun is bright above.

Let clouds obscure, or darkness veil, Her fond idolatry is fled,Her sighs no more their sweets exhale, The loving eye is cold and dead.

Canst thou not trace a moral here, False flatterer of the prosperous hour?Let but an adverse cloud appear, And thou art faithless as the flower.