LOVE’S WREATH.
When Love was a child, and went idling round
Among flowers the whole summer’s day,
One morn in the valley a bower he found,
So sweet, it allured him to stay.
O’erhead from the trees hung a garland fair,
A fountain ran darkly beneath;
’Twas Pleasure that hung the bright flowers up there,
Love knew it and jump’d at the wreath.
But Love did not know—and at his weak years,
What urchin was likely to know?—
That sorrow had made of her own salt tears,
That fountain which murmur’d below.
He caught at the wreath, but with too much haste,
As boys when impatient will do;
It fell in those waters of briny taste,
And the flowers were all wet through.
Yet this is the wreath he wears night and day;
And though it all sunny appears
With Pleasure’s own luster, each leaf, they say,
Still tastes of the fountain of tears.
Thomas Moore.