LINES TO A WITHERED ROSE.

I cast thee from me, poor child of day

Like the lost heart that bore thee now wither'd and dead,

To open no more in the sunshiny ray.

Thy fragrance exhausted, thy loveliness fled.

'Tis the bright and the happy, the fresh and the gay,

Alone that are fitted to flaunt in man's sight,

When withered, far better to cast them away,

Than to mock their dull hues with the glitter of light.

No culture can ever restore thee thy bloom,

Or waken thy odour, or raise up thy head,

The wretch's last refuge, the dust and the tomb,

Is all I can give, now thy sweetness has fled.

O who would live on, when life's brightness is past,

When the heart has lost all that once bade it beat high?

When hopes still prove false, and when joys never last,

'Tis better to wither--'tis better to die.

I cast thee from me--away to the earth,

More happy than others that must not depart,

Doom'd to bear on their grief 'neath the semblance of mirth,

With silence of feeling, and deadness of heart.