To the Gentina Crinita, the Lait Flower of Autumn
by James G. Percival.
‘ Sweet floweret of the waning year,
Last blossom of the fading pisins,
The leaves are falling wan and sere,
And the lone widowed bird complains.
Still then art dearer to my heart
Than all the sweets the Spring unveils;
Thy bloom a softer mood impart
Than violets breathing in the vales.
There is a melancholy grace,
That spreads thy lonely portals o'er;
They tell that winter comes space.
That soon will rise the tempest's rear.
The flowers decay, the fields are bare,
The humble violet tears to blow,
The woods no more their honors wear,
Light rustling full the leaves below.
Still thou unfoldist thy lonely leaf,
And smil'st amid the fields alone,
Thou seem it some weeping child of grief,
That mourns her comfort flown.
Had I not roved the desert plain,
Where heath the hedge you sweet'y blew,
Your petals had been spread in vain,
Your only guest the evening dew.
Or when amid the leafless wood
The blue bird chirped with drooping wing,
He night have o'er thy beauty stood,
And sung his lay, and thought it Spring.
How richly purple is thy hue,
Thy fringe-like beauty's ebon rays,
Where the eye's lustre glances through,
And meeker shines its living blaze.
In vain the pencil would essay
To give thy form its native grace:
How weaker still the feeble lay,
That would thy mellow features trace!
Where'er I meet thee on the plains,
Thy beauties to my soul how dear;
How worthy thou of higher strains,
Sweet floweret of the waning year,
’
