The Lover and Flower.
I found it, one day, in a pretty shade
Which a vine and a maple together made;
’Twas blooming away in a dress of white,
With eyes of a blue transparent light.
I knelt at its shrine,
And this heart of mine
Drank in the fragrance as one drinks wine.
Then I said, “Sweet flower, this cooling shade
With the summer weather will dim and fade,
There’s a place in my heart—a cozy room—
Where you may nestle and grow and bloom.”
Thus I wooed the flower,
In this shady bower,
And lovers we were that self-same hour.
I carried it home, I pruned it with care,
I gave it the sun and the morning air.
The honey bees came its dew to sip,
But I drove them away with pouting lip;
For I loved my flower,
And with jealous power
I banished the bees from our curtained bower.
A butterfly came on wings of lace,
And tried to fan my blossom’s face;
But I brushed it away with cruel hands,
And tore from its wings the velvet bands;
Then I kissed my flower;
But a summer shower
Burst from the clouds with mesmeric power.
Then the pale little blossom heaved a sigh,
And opened a blue and timid eye
To thank the cloud as it did in the shade,
Which the vine and the maple together made;
But my heart would rebel;
I could not quell
Its raging fire—it seemed from hell.
I slammed the shutters with curses of doom;
I made it dark as a dungeon room,
Then I hurried away like a thief in the night;
But I strolled again in the warm sunlight,
And another flower
From Fashion’s own bower
I culled, and nursed it only an hour.
It proved but a weed with a gaudy bloom,
And a poisonous odor filled my room.
So I turned once more to my wildwood flower,
That I locked in my heart that sinful hour,
When the angel of love,
To its mansion above,
Had fluttered away like a wounded dove.
How softly I turned the key in my heart;
One moment I faltered—the door swung apart—
A faint, sweet essence, like heliotrope bloom,
Was sick’ning my senses; I moved through the room
With a staggering tread,
With a brain reeling head,
And swooned there—a murd’rer—my flower was—dead.
