Page:Landon in The New Monthly 1835.pdf/4



flowers to crown the cup and lute,— Bring flowers,—the bride is near; Bring flowers to soothe the captive's cell, Bring flowers to strew the bier! Bring flowers! thus said the lovely song; And shall they not be brought To her who linked the offering With feeling and with thought?

Bring flowers,—the perfumed and the pure,— Those with the morning dew, A sigh in every fragrant leaf, A tear on every hue. So pure, so sweet thy life has been, So filling earth and air With odours and with loveliness, Till common scenes grew fair.

Thy song around our daily path Flung beauty born of dreams, And scattered o'er the actual world The spirit's sunny gleams. Mysterious influence, that to earth Brings down the heaven above, And fills the universal heart With universal love.

Such gifts were thine,—as from the block, The unformed and the cold, The sculptor calls to breathing life Some shape of perfect mould, So thou from common thoughts and things Didst call a charmed song, Which on a sweet and swelling tide Bore the full soul along.

And thou from far and foreign lands Didst bring back many a tone, And giving such new music still, A music of thine own.