Poems of Felicia Hemans in Friendship's Offering, 1827/Fading Flowers

by Felicia Hemans

FADING FLOWERS

Painted by J. M. WrightEngraved by E. Finden

Taken from a review in The Eclectic Review Vol. I, 1827, page 92

FADING FLOWERS. By Mrs. Hemans,

    'O pale and drooping flowers!
Ye that so brightly meet the morning's eye!
Is there no sorrow in your native bowers
    That thus ye die?

    'Are there not folded wings
On the green boughs?—a silence and a gloom
Amidst the leaves and all the breathing things
    That loved your bloom?

    'No! the rejoicing bee
There woos the violets, as at early dawn;
And o'er the elastic sod, in tameless glee,
    Still bounds the fawn.

    'And the rich bank ye crown'd,
By the wood's fount, yet hears a thousand songs
Float through the branches, trembling far around
    With happy throngs.

    'Wherefore, to us alone
Of all that walk the warm and laughing earth,
Bring ye sad thoughts of Hope and Beauty gone,
    And vanished Mirth?

    'Why must your fading bells,
With the faint sweetness of your parting breath,
Remind us but of sorrowful farewells,
    Decay and Death?

    'Surely, it is to teach
Our hearts, by converse with their changeful lot,
That, 'midst the glories which the blight can reach,
    Our Home is not.'