Poems (Frances Elizabeth Browne)/Lines to an old lady

by Frances Elizabeth Browne

LINES TO AN OLD LADY, 

ON HER PRESENTING THE WRITER WITH SOME WALLFLOWER ROOTS, WITH THE OBSERVATION, THAT THEY WOULD REMIND HER OF HER WHEN SHE WAS REMOVED TO A BETTER COUNTRY.

My dear, my valued and respected friend,
 The flowers I 've planted you so lately gave;
Deep and luxuriant may their roots descend,
 And winter's rigorous season strongly brave.

And may these fair remembrancers of thee
 In many a future summer brightly bloom,
And O, may'st thou their annual beauties see,
 And taste the fragrance of their sweet perfume!

Yet, if the Power Supreme who decked the earth
 With flowers, and bade the verdant landscape glow,—
To whose creating hand their mutual birth
 Nature and man alike their being owe,—

Should call thee hence to that eternal home,
 That better country, where thy treasures lie,
Where spring shall flourish in immortal bloom,
 And time, and age, and pain, and death shall die,

These fair mementos, grateful to the eye,
 To memory shall their pleasing aid impart;
But these frail flowers may wither, fade, and die,—
 Not so thy sweet remembrance in my heart.

Yes, while they lived they might soothe my regret;
 Their fragrance would recall thy piety;
Yet think not I can e'er thy worth forget,
 Or need their aid to love thy memory.