Transplanted Flowers

Ye living gems of cold and fragrant fire!
Die ye for ever, when ye die, ye flowers?
Take ye, when in your beauty ye expire,
An everlasting farewell of your bowers?
No more to listen for the wooing air,
And song-brought morn, the cloud-ting'd woodlands o'er
No more to June's soft lip your breasts to bare,
And drink fond evening's dewy breath no more!
Soon fades the sweetest, first the fairest dies,
For frail and fair are sisters; but the heart,
Fill'd with deep love, death's power to kill denies,
And sobs ev'n o'er the dead, " We cannot part! "
Have I not seen thee, Wild Rose, in my dreams,
Like a pure spirit — beauteous as the skies
When the clear blue is brightest, and the streams
Dance down the hills, reflecting the rich dyes
Of morning clouds, and cistus woodbine-twined?
Didst thou not wake me from a dream of death?
Yea, and thy voice was sweeter than the wind
When it inhales the love-sick violet's breath,
Bending it down with kisses, where the bee
Hums over golden gorse, and sunny broom.
Soul of the Rose! what said'st thou then to me?
" We meet," thou said'st, " though sever'd by the tomb:
Lo, brother, this is heav'n! And, thus the just shall
bloom."