Page:Friendship's Offering 1826.pdf/12



Were lost in the blue sky. Just where the trees Met the bright waters, was a lighter space; And, like the pillars of a mighty temple, The pine, the beech, the maple stretched away, In long and stately avenues—their dome The glorious heaven! This was all nature's work, And now was but as it had been for years. But there were fragile flowers, and tender shrubs, Whose feminine frail beauty asked for more Than the rude nursing of the summer breeze. There was the red rose, like an evening cloud; The white rose, pale as pining for the song Of her now absent love, the nightingale; The orange tree—that miser of the spring, Amassing gold and silver; jessamine, Showering down pearl and amber; myrtle plants; And, where the sun shone warmest, olives green:— For Inez had collected all that, once, Her early youth had loved in Arragon; And, with all woman's sweet solicitude, She had brought those, too, of his native land, Her lover's England;—there, the violet shed The treasures of its purple Araby; The primrose, pale as the last star that fades Before the day-break; and the honeysuckle, Hung as around an English cottage walls. —No marvel woman should love flowers, they bear So much of fanciful similitude To her own history; like herself, repaying, With such sweet interest, all the cherishing