Poems (Botta)/To ****, With Flowers
TO ****, WITH FLOWERS.
Go, ye sweet messengers, To that dim-lighted room,Where lettered wisdom from the walls Sheds a delightful gloom;
Where sits in thought profound, One in the noon of life,Whose flashing eye and fevered brow Tell of the inward strife;
Who in those wells of lore, Seeks for the pearls of truth,And to Ambition’s fever dream Gives his repose and youth.
To him, sweet ministers, Ye shall a lesson teach,—Go in your fleeting loveliness, More eloquent than speech.
Tell him in laurel wreaths No perfume e’er is found,And that upon a crown of thorns Those leaves are ever bound.
Thoughts fresh as your own hues Bear ye to that abode,—Speak of the sunshine and the sky, Of Nature and of God.