To flourish in my favourite bower,
To blossom round my cot,
I cultivate the little flower
They call Forget-me-not.
This pretty little floweret’s dye
Of soft cerulean blue,
Appears as if from Ellen’s eye
It had received its hue.
Though oceans now betwixt us roar,
Though distant be our lot,
Ellen! though we should meet no more,
Sweet maid, Forget me not!
Forget thee, love?—no, not while heaven
Spans its starred vault across the sky;
Oh, may I never be forgiven,
If e’er I cause that heart a sigh!
Sooner shall the Forget-me-not
Shun the fringed brook by which it grows,
And pine for some sequestered spot,
Where not a silver ripple flows.
By the blue heaven that bends above me,
Dearly and fondly do I love thee!
They fabled not in days of old
That Love neglected soon will perish,—
Throughout all time the truth doth hold
That what we love we ever cherish,
For when the Sun neglects the Flower,
And the sweet pearly dews forsake it,
It hangs its head, and from that hour,
Prays only unto Death to take it.
So may I droop, by all above me,
If once this heart doth cease to love thee!
The turtle-dove that’s lost its mate,
Hides in some gloomy greenwood shade,
And there alone mourns o’er its fate,
With plumes for ever disarrayed:
Alone! alone! it there sits cooing:—
Deem’st thou, my love, what it doth seek?
’Tis Death the mournful bird is wooing,
In murmurs through its plaintive beak.
So will I mourn, by all above me,
If in this world I cease to love thee!
Rosemary.... Remembrance.
The Rosemary is so often mentioned by our early writers, both in prose, poetry, and our oldest dramas, that a long article, possessing great interest to such as love old-fashioned things, might be written upon it. The Rosemary was used both at their feasts and their funerals,—the christening-cup was stirred with it, and it was worn at their marriage ceremonies. Shakspeare has chosen it for the emblem of Remembrance, and who would attempt to change the meaning of a flower which his genius has hallowed, or disturb a leaf over which he has breathed his holy “superstition?”—in memory of him we use the latter word in all reverence. A few years ago it was customary, in many parts of England, to plant slips of Rosemary over the dead; nor has the practice yet fallen altogether into disuse—rural cemeteries will revive these ancient customs. Shakspeare chose the Rosemary as the emblem of affectionate remembrance, for its flowering in winter,—a very poetic and touching allusion. The sweet maniac, Ophelia, says,
There’s Rosemary, “That for remembrance,
I pray you love, remember.”
I loved thee, and must love thee still,
In memory of the past
Amid whate’er of earthly ill
My future lot is cast!
E’er in my boyhood’s sunny prime,
When brightly from the urn of Time
Life’s golden moments fell,
Thou wert a peri to my eyes,
Sent from Love’s own sweet paradise,
In my young heart to dwell.
New York Mirror.
Remember me, I pray; but not
In Flora’s gay and blooming hour,
When every brake hath found its note,
And sunshine smiles in every flower;
But when the falling leaf is sere,
And withers sadly from the tree,
And o’er the ruins of the year
Cold autumn weeps,—remember me.