Poems (Osgood)/The Star and the Flower, or the Two Pets

by Frances Sargent Osgood

THE STAR AND THE FLOWER;

OR, THE TWO PETS.

"Ad ogni uccello,
Suo nodo é bello."

Ah yours, with her light-waving hair,
 That droops to her shoulders of snow,
And her cheek, where the palest and purest of roses
 Most faintly and tenderly glow!

There is something celestial about her;
 I never behold the fair child,
Without thinking she's pluming invisible wings
 For a region more holy and mild.

There is so much of pure seraph-fire
 Within the dark depths of her eye,
That I feel a resistless and earnest desire
 To hold her for fear she should fly.

Her smile is as soft as a spirit's,—
 As sweet as a bird's is her tone;
She is fair as the silvery star of the morn,
 When it gleams thro' the gray mist alone.

But mine is a simple wild-flower,
 A balmy and beautiful thing,
That glows with new love and delight every hour,
 Thro' the tears and the smiles of sweet spring!

Her eyes have the dark brilliant azure
 Of heaven in a clear summer night,
And each impulse of frolicsome, infantine joy,
 Brings a shy little dimple to light.

Her young soul looks bright from a brow
 Too fair for earth's sorrow and shame;
Her graceful and glowing lip curls, even now,
 With a spirit no tyrant can tame.

Then let us no longer compare
 These tiny, pet-treasures of ours;
For yours shall be loveliest still of the stars,
 And mine shall be fairest of flowers.