Moral Pieces, in Prose and Verse/Gratitude 1
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.
Rest here, meek plants, for few intrude
To trouble this deep solitude;
But should the giddy footstep tread
Upon the ashes of the dead,
Still let the hand of rashness spare
These little plants of love to tear,
Since fond affection with a tear,
Has plac'd them for an offering here.
Adorn the grave of her who sleeps
Unconscious, while remembrance weeps,
Though ever, ever did she feel,
And mourn those pangs she could not heal.
Sev'n times the sun with swift career,
Has mark'd the circle of the year,
Since first she prest her lowly bier;
And sev'n times, sorrowing have I come,
Alone, and wandering through the gloom,
To pour my lays upon her tomb:
And I have sigh'd to see her bed
With brambles, and with thorns o'erspread,
For surely round her place of rest,
I should not let the coarse weed twine,
Who so the couch of pain has blest,
The path of want so freely drest,
And scatter'd such perfumes on mine.
It is not meet that she should be
Forgotten or unblest by me.
Ye plants, that in your hallow'd beds,
Like strangers, lift your trembling heads,
Drink the pure dew that evening sheds,
And meet the morning's earliest ray,
And catch the sun-beams as they play;
And when your buds are moist with rain,
Oh shed those drops in tears again;
And if the blast that sweeps the heath,
Too rudely o'er your leaves should breathe,
Then sigh for her; and when you bloom
Scatter your fragrance on her tomb.
But should you, smit with terror, cast
Your infant foliage on the blast,
Or faint beneath the vertic heat,
Or shrink when wintry tempests beat,
There is a plant of constant bloom,
And it shall deck this lowly tomb,
Not blanch'd with frost, or drown'd with rain,
Or by the breath of winter slain;
Or by the sweeping gale annoy'd,
Or by the giddy hand destroy'd,
But every morn its buds renew'd,
Are by the drops of evening dew'd
This is the plant of Gratitude.