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Now, rocked upon her fragile trembling stem,
The soft Harebell
Is slumbering light and dreamily;—for sure
Bright dreams may well
Be thought to visit things so pure and fair,
Whose deaths no anguish have, whose lives no care.
Oh! that I were a flower to slumber so!
To wake at morn
E'en with as lithe a spirit; and to die,
As these return
Unto their mother-earth, when air and sky
Have caught their od'rous immortality.
The fragrance is the spirit of the flower,
E'en as the soul
Is our ethereal portion, We can ne'er
Hold or control
One more than other. Passing sweet must be
The visions, gentle things, that visit ye!
How happily ye live in the pure light
Of loveliness:—
Do ye not feel how deeply—wondrously—
Ye cheer and bless
Our chequered sojourn on this weary earth,
Whose wildest, dreariest spots to FLOWERS have given birth?
