Poems (Hoffman)/Flowers and Weeds
FLOWERS AND WEEDS
This fragile hothouse plant of mine In perfect bloom,This flower whose varied tints combineThe costliest jewel to outshine,This native of some tropic clime,This princess of a royal line, Ah! would she ownThat low, coarse weed by yonder fence,A cousin to her excellence?
And yet the truth must needs proclaim, With Fate's stern pen;The weed, a thing of blight and blame,Bears in its coarse low life the sameRemote and honored family name,As this, my pet of floral fame; With flowers and menThe ties of nature sometimes bindTo rudest natures left behind.
The honored, virtuous life must blush Ofttimes in vain,For kindred lives whose baseness crushThe buds of promise in their flush,And make their names a funeral hush,And pure affection's fountains gush, To bear a stain;Condemn not truth for error's deeds,While flowers are flowers and weeds are weeds.