The Wreath

NAY, fling not down those faded flowers,
Too late they're scatter'd round;
And violet and rose-leaf lie
Together on the ground.

How carefully this very morn
Those buds were cull'd and wreathed I
And, mid the cloud of that dark hair,
How sweet a sigh they breathed I

And many a gentle word was said
Above their morning dye, —
How that the rose had touch'd thy cheek,
The violet thine eye.

Methinks, if but for memory,
I should have kept these flowers;
Ah I all too lightly does thy heart
Dwell upon vanished hours.

Already has thine eager hand
Stripp'd yonder rose-hung bough;
The wreath that bound thy raven curls,
Thy feet are on it now.

That glancing smile, it seems to say
"Thou art too fanciful:
What matters it what roses fade,
While there are more to cull? "Ay, I was wrong to ask of thee
Such gloomy thoughts as mine:
Thou in thy Spring, how shouldst thou dream
Of Autumn's pale decline?

Young, lovely, loved, — oh! far from thee
Life's after-dearth and doom:
Long ere thou learn how memory clings
To even faded bloom!