No longer mourn for me when I am dead.
 Then you shall hear the surly, sullen bell
 Give warning to the world that I am fled
 From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell.
 Nay, if you read this line, remember not
 The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
 That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
 If thinking of me then should work you wo!
Shakspeare.
Now shall my verse, which thou in life didst grace,
 Not leave thee in the grave, that ugly place,
 That few regard, or have respect unto:
 Where all attendance and observance ends;
 Where all the sunshine of our favour sets;
 Where what was ill no countenance defends,
 And what was good the unthankful world forgets.
Daniel.
Hence, profane grim man! nor dare
 To approach so neere my faire.
 Marble vaults, and gloomy caves,
 Church-yards, charnell-houses, graves,
 Where the living loath to be,
 Heaven hath designed to thee.
 But if needs ’mongst us thou’lt rage,
 Let thy fury feed on age.
Habington.
So doth the swiftly turning wheel not stand
 I’ the instant we withdraw the moving hand,
 But some short time retains a faint, weak course,
 By virtue of the first impulsive force;
 And so, whilst I cast on thy funeral pile
 Thy crown of bays, oh let it crack awhile,
 And spit disdain, till the devouring flashes
 Suck all the moisture up, then turn to ashes.
Carew.
Ah! thou hast left to live; and in the time
 When scarce thou blossom’dst in thy pleasant prime:
 So falls by northern blast a virgin rose,
 At half that doth her bashful bosom close;
 So a sweet flower languishing decays,
 That late did blush when kissed by Phœbus’ rays;
 So Phœbus mounting the meridian’s height,
 Choked by pale Phœbe faints unto our sight;
 Astonished Nature sullen stands to see
 The life of all this all so changed to be;
 In gloomy gowns the stars this loss deplore,
 The sea with murmuring mountains beats the shore.
Drummond.
Death is the crown of life:
 Were death denied, poor men would live in vain;
 Were death denied, to live would not be life:
 Were death denied, even fools would wish to die.
Young.
Death is the sea, and we like rivers flow
 To lose our selves in the insatiate maine,
 Whence rivers may, she ne’er returne againe.
 Nor grieve this christall streame so soone did fall
 Into the ocean; since shee perfumed all
 The banks she past, so that each neighbour field
 Did sweete flowers cherish by her watring, yeeld,
 Which now adorne her herse.
Habington.
We bore him to the grave while yet ’twas morn,
 The winter sunlight shining on his coffin:
 The weight of grief was heavy to be borne,
 And the salt tears rose in our eyelids often.
 We slowly walked in mutely sad procession;
 The pitying people freely made us way;
 And the blest child, yet guiltless of transgression,
 We softly placed between the walls of clay.
 We sang a hymn—we bowed our heads to pray;
 And God, who had our bitter grief appointed,
 Sent also strengthening grace by lips anointed.
 We looked again on George as low he lay
 Deep in the earth; and when we homeward went,
 We felt his home was better ’yond the firmament.
MacKellar.

Mistletoe.... I climb to greatness.

The Mistletoe is a creeping plant which grows on the tops of the tallest trees. The proud oak is its slave, and nourishes it with his own substance. The Druids paid a kind of adoration to it, as the emblem of a weakness that was superior to strength: they regarded the tyrant of the oak as equally formidable to men and gods.

’Tis a common proof,
 That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
 Whereto the climber upwards turns his face:
 But when he once attains the upmost round,
 He then unto the ladder turns his back,
 Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
 By which he did ascend.
Shakspeare.
He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find
 The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
 He who surpasses or subdues mankind
 Must look down on the hate of those below.
 Though high above the sun of glory glow,
 And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
 Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
 Contending tempests on his naked head,
 And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.
Byron.
Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
 A man of such a feeble temper should
 So get the start of the majestic world,
 And bear the palm alone.
Shakspeare.
On the summit see,
 The seals of office glitter in his eyes;
 He climbs,—he pants,—he grasps them. At his heels,
 Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,
 And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down,
 And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.
Cowper.
If any man must fall for me to rise,
 Then seek I not to rise. Another’s pain
 I choose not for my good. A golden chain—
 A robe of honour is too poor a prize
 To tempt my hasty hand to do a wrong
 Unto a fellow man. This life hath wo
 Sufficient, wrought by man’s satanic foe;
 And who that hath a heart would dare prolong
 Or add unto the sorrows of a soul
 That seeks some healing balm to make it whole?
 My bosom owns the brotherhood of man;
 From God and truth a renegade is he
 Who scorns a poor man in his poverty,
 Or on his fellow lays a supercilious ban.
MacKellar.

Ash Tree.... Grandeur.

It is sure,
 Stamped by the seal of nature, that the well
 Of mind, where all its waters gather pure,
 Shall with unquestioned spell all hearts allure.
 Wisdom enshrined in beauty—Oh! how high
 The order of that loveliness.
Percival.
The sky is changed!—and such a change! O night,
 And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
 Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
 Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
 From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
 Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
 But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
 And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
 Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
 And this is in the night:—most glorious night!
 Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be
 A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,—
 A portion of the tempest and of thee!
 How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
 And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
 And now again ’tis black,—and now, the glee
 Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth,
 As if they did rejoice o’er a young earthquake’s birth.
Byron.
I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown,
 But to rejoice in splendour of mine own.
Shakspeare.
But lo! the dome—the vast and wondrous dome,
 To which Diana’s marvel was a cell—
 Christ’s mighty shrine above his martyr’s tomb!
 I have beheld the Ephesian’s miracle—
 Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell
 The hyæna and the jackal in their shade;
 I have beheld Sophia’s bright roofs swell
 Their glittering mass i’ the sun, and have surveyed
 Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem prayed;
 But thou, of temples old, or altars new,
 Standest alone—with nothing like to thee—
 Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.
 Since Zion’s desolation, when that He
 Forsook his former city, what could be,
 Of earthly structures in his honour piled,
 Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,
 Power, glory, strength, and beauty, all are aisled
 In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.
 Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
 And why? it is not lessened; but thy mind,
 Expanded by the genius of the spot,
 Has grown colossal, and can only find
 A fit abode wherein appear enshrined
 Thy hopes of immortality; and thou
 Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,
 See thy God face to face, as thou dost now
 His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow.
Byron.
What peremptory, eagle-sighted eye
 Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,
 That is not blinded by her majesty?
Shakspeare.
The glorious sun
 Stays in his course, and plays the alchymist,
 Turning, with splendour of his precious eye,
 The meagre, cloddy earth to glittering gold.
Shakspeare.
No! I shall never lose the trace,
 Of what I’ve felt in this bright place;
 And should my spirit’s hope grow weak,—
 Should I, O God! forget thy power,
 This mighty scene again I’ll seek,
 At the same calm and glowing hour;
 And here at the sublimest shrine
 That nature ever reared to thee,
 Rekindle all that hope divine,
 And feel my immortality!
Moore.

Chamomile.... Energy in Adversity.

Italy!
 Time, which hath wronged thee with ten thousand rents
 Of thine imperial garment, shall deny,
 And hath denied, to every other sky,
 Spirits which soar from ruin:—thy decay
 Is still impregnate with divinity.
 Which gilds it with revivifying ray.
Byron.
I said to Penury’s meagre train,
 Come on—your threats I brave;
 My last poor life-drop you may drain,
 And crush me to the grave;
 Yet still the spirit that endures,
 Shall mock your force the while,
 And meet each cold, cold grasp of yours
 With bitter smile.
I said to cold Neglect and Scorn,
 Pass on—I heed you not;
 Ye may pursue me till my form
 And being are forgot;
 Yet still, the spirit which you see
 Undaunted by your wiles,
 Draws from its own nobility
 Its high-born smiles.
Mrs. Hale.
When a great mind falls,
 The noble nature of man’s generous heart
 Doth bear him up against the shame of ruin,
 With gentle censure, using but his faults
 As modest means to introduce his praise;
 For pity, like a dewy twilight, comes
 To close th’ oppressive splendour of his day,
 And they who but admired him in his height
 His altered state lament, and love him fallen.
Joanna Baillie.
Oh, more or less than man—in high or low,
 Battling with nations, flying from the field;
 Now making monarchs’ necks thy footstool, now
 More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield;
 An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild,
 But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor,
 However deeply in men’s spirits skilled,
 Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war,
 Nor learn that tempted fate will leave the loftiest star.
 Yet well thy soul hath brooked the turning tide
 With that untaught innate philosophy,
 Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride,
 Is gall and wormwood to an enemy.
 When the whole host of hatred stood hard by,
 To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled
 With a sedate and all-enduring eye;—
 When fortune fled her spoiled and favourite child,
 He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled.
Byron.

Citron.... Estrangement.

Ev’n as one heat another heat expels,
 Or as one nail by strength drives out another;
 So the remembrance of my former love
 Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
Shakspeare.
Few years have passed since thou and I
 Were firmest friends, at least in name,
 And childhood’s gay sincerity
 Preserved our feelings long the same.
 But now, like me, too well thou know’st
 What trifles oft the heart recall;
 And those who once have loved the most
 Too soon forget they loved at all.
 And such the change the heart displays,
 So frail is early friendship’s reign,
 A month’s brief lapse, perhaps a day’s,
 Will view thy mind estranged again.
 If so, it never shall be mine
 To mourn the loss of such a heart;
 The fault was Nature’s fault, not thine,
 Which made thee fickle as thou art.
 As rolls the ocean’s changing tide,
 So human feelings ebb and flow;
 And who would in a breast confide
 Where stormy passions ever glow?
Byron.
Tis otherwise decreed, and I submit!
 Alone I guide my bark adown the stream;
 Dark is the voyage, around the night-birds flit,
 The waves are tinged by no sweet-smiling beam.
 And now I breathe the parting word—Farewell!
 And now, the cords which fondly bind, I sever!
 Break from the scenes I once had loved so well,—
 And tear thine image from my heart for ever!
J. W. Hanson.
Farewell, Theresa! that cloud which over
 Yon moon this moment gathering we see,
 Shall scarce from her pure path have passed, ere thy lover
 Swift o’er the wide wave shall wander from thee.
 Long, like that dim cloud, I’ve hung around thee,
 Darkening thy prospects, saddening thy brow;
 With gay heart, Theresa, and bright cheek I found thee;
 Oh! think how changed, love, how changed art thou now!
 But here I free thee: like one awaking
 From fearful slumber, this dream thou’lt tell;
 The bright moon her spell too is breaking,
 Past are the dark clouds; Theresa, farewell!
Moore.

Dragon Plant.... You are near a snare.

He secretly
 Puts pirate’s colours out at both our sterns,
 That we might fight each other in mistake,
 That he should share the ruin of us both!
Crown.
His tongue was soft as velvet leaf,
 His poison-fangs concealing;
 But where he stung, the festering wound
 Was past the art of healing.
 “Beware of him whose speech is smooth,”
 The mother spake her daughter;
 “The deepest depths are ever found
 Where flows the smoothest water.”
 “His heart is like an angel’s heart,”
 The daughter spake her mother;
 “He seeks to be to thee and me
 A loving son and brother.”
 She listened to his guileful tale,
 Nor heeded words of warning;
 Ah! bitterly did future pain
 Repay her present scorning.
 For Robin laid his cunning game
 With art so deep and skilful,
 That gentle Ellen’s mind was turned
 To disobedience wilful.
MacKellar.
Is there no way to save thee? minutes fly,
 And thou art lost! thou! my sole benefactor,
 The only being who was constant to me
 Through every change. Yet, make me not a traitor!
 Let me save thee—but spare my honour!
Byron.
Ah, heedless girl! why thus disclose
 What ne’er was meant for other ears?
 Why thus destroy thine own repose,
 And dig the source of future tears?
 Oh! thou wilt weep, imprudent maid,
 While lurking, envious foes will smile,
 For all the follies thou hast said,
 Of those who spoke but to beguile.
Byron.
Again, I tell thee, ask not; but by all
 Thou boldest dear on earth or heaven—by all
 The souls of thy great fathers, and thy hope
 To emulate them, and to leave behind
 Descendants worthy both of them and thee—
 By all thou hast of blest in hope or memory—
 By all thou hast to fear here or hereafter—
 By all the good deeds thou hast done to me,
 Good I would now repay with greater good,
 Remain within—trust to thy household gods
 And to my word for safety, if thou dost
 As I now counsel—but if not, thou art lost!
Byron.

Reed.... Single Blessedness.

But earlier is the rose distilled,
 Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
 Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.
Shakspeare.
Love not, love not; the thing you love may change;
 The rosy lip may cease to smile on you,
 The kindly beaming eye grow cold and strange,
 The heart still warmly beat, and not for you.
Mrs. Norton.
Alone! alone! how drear it is always to be alone!
 In such a depth of wilderness, the only thinking one!
 The waters in their path rejoice, the trees together sleep—
 But I have not one silver voice upon my ear to creep!
Willis.
Do any thing but love; or, if thou lovest,
 And art a woman, hide thy love from him
 Whom thou dost worship. Never let him know
 How dear he is; flit like a bird before him;
 Lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower;
 But be not won; or thou wilt, like that bird,
 When caught and caged, be left to pine neglected,
 And perish in forgetfulness.
Miss Landon.
O many a summer’s morning glow
 Has lent the rose its ray,
 And many a winter’s drifting snow
 Has swept its bloom away;
 But she has kept the faithless pledge
 To this, her winter hour,
 And keeps it still, herself alone,
 And wasted like the flower.
O. W. Holmes.
My heart is with its early dream;
 It cannot turn away
 To seek again the joys of earth,
 And mingle with the gay.
 The dew-nursed flower that lifts its brow
 Beneath the shades of night,
 Must wither when the sunbeam sheds
 Its too resplendent light.
 My heart is with its early dream,
 And vainly love’s soft power
 Would seek to charm that heart anew,
 In some unguarded hour.
 I would not that some gentle one
 Should hear my frequent sigh;
 The deer that bears its death-wound, turns
 In loneliness to die.
Mrs. Embury.

Fennel.... Strength.

Oh, fear not in a world like this,
 And thou shalt know ere long,
 Know how sublime a thing it is,
 To suffer and grow strong.
Longfellow.
As the slow beast with heavy strength indued
 In some wide field by troops of boys pursued,
 Though round his sides a wooden tempest rain,
 Crops the tall harvest, and lays waste the plain;
 Thick on his hide the hollow blows resound,
 The patient animal maintains his ground,
 Scarce from the field with all their efforts chased,
 And stirs but slowly when he stirs at last.
 On Ajax thus a weight of Trojans hung,
 The strokes redoubled on his buckler rung;
 Confiding now in bulky strength he stands,
 Now turns, and backward bears the yielding bands:
 Now stiff recedes, yet hardly seems to fly,
 And threats his followers with retorted eye.
 Fixed as the bar between two warring powers,
 While hissing darts descend in iron showers:
 In his broad buckler many a weapon stood,
 Its surface bristled with a quivering wood;
 And many a javelin, guiltless, on the plain
 Marks the dry dust, and thirsts for blood in vain.
Pope.
Thrice sounds the clarion; lo! the signal falls,
 The den expands, and expectation mute
 Gapes round the silent circle’s peopled walls.
 Bounds with one lashing spring the mighty brute,
 And, wildly staring, spurns, with sounding foot,
 The sand, nor blindly rushes on his foe:
 Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit
 His first attack, wide waving to and fro
 His angry tail; red rolls his eye’s dilated glow.
Byron.
The lusty strength of youth
 Is better far than proud decrepitude.
 With mind and might and fortitude endued,
 We stand erect and fight for present truth.
 We’re in the young delight of new existence;
 The ardent blood leaps lively in our veins;
 The dim traditions glimmering in the distance
 We scorn, for objects worthier manly pains.
MacKellar.
He that of such a height hath built his mind,
 And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,
 As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame
 Of his resolved powers; nor do all the wind
 Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong
 His settled peace, or to disturb the same:
 What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may
 The boundless wastes and weilds of man survey!
Daniel.

Coxcomb.... Singularity.

Go then, and if you can, admire the state
 Of beaming diamonds, and reflected plate;
 Procure a taste to double the surprise,
 And gaze on Parian charms with learned eyes:
 Be struck with bright brocade, or Tyrian dye,
 Or birth-day nobles’ splendid livery.
Pope.
He also had a quality uncommon
 To early risers after a long chase,
 Who wake in winter ere the cock can summon
 December’s drowsy day to his dull race,—
 A quality agreeable to woman,
 When her soft liquid words run on apace,
 Who likes a listener, whether saint or sinner,—
 He did not fall asleep just after dinner;
 But, light and airy, stood on the alert,
 And shone in the best part of dialogue,
 By humouring always what they might assert,
 And listening to the topics most in vogue;
 Now grave, now gay, but never dull or pert;
 And smiling but in secret—cunning rogue!
 He ne’er presumed to make an error clearer;
 In short, there never was a better hearer.
Byron.

Grass.... Submission.

According to the Greek historians, Grass was made the symbol of submission, because the ancient nations of the West gathered Grass and presented it to the conqueror, to show that they confessed themselves overcome. The grass is trodden under foot by imperial man; and, instead of returning to its former vigour with elastic spring, or punishing its violator like the nettle, yields to its fate—spiritless submission.

It grieves me to the soul
 To see how man submits to man’s control;
 How overpowered and shackled minds are led
 In vulgar tracks, and to submission bred.
Crabbe.
You shall be as a father to my youth,
 My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear;
 And I will stoop and humble my intents
 To your well practised, wise directions.
Shakspeare.
Romans now
 Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;
 But, wo the while! our fathers’ minds are dead,
 And we are governed with our mother’s spirits;
 Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.
Shakspeare.
E’en liberty itself is bartered here.
 At gold’s superior charms all freedom flies,
 The needy sell it, and the rich man buys;
 A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves,
 Here wretches seek dishonourable graves,
 And, calmly bent, to servitude conform,
 Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.
Goldsmith.
Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied
 By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride;
 From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind
 An easy compensation seem to find.
 Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp arrayed,
 The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade;
 Processions formed for piety and love,
 A mistress or a saint in every grove.
 By sports like these are all their cares beguiled,
 The sports of children satisfy the child;
 Each nobler aim, repressed by long control,
 Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul;
 While low delights, succeeding fast behind,
 In happier meanness occupy the mind:
 As in those domes, where Cæsars once bore sway,
 Defaced by time and tottering in decay,
 There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
 The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
 And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
 Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.
Goldsmith.

Fir.... Time.

What does not fade? the tower, that long had stood
 The crush of thunder and the warring winds,
 Shook by the slow, but sure destroyer, Time,
 Now hangs in doubtful ruins o’er its base,
 And flinty pyramids and walls of brass
 Descend; the Babylonian spires are sunk;
 Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down.
 Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
 And tottering empires crush by their own weight.
Armstrong.
The clock upon the mantel-piece is ticking;
 Thus hour by hour it tolls a funeral chime:
 By day and night its calm and constant clicking
 Denotes the speed of the old traveller Time.
 It is a solemn voice. Who hath an ear
 To hear its warning accents, let him hear,
 And preparation make to meet the day
 When he, alone, shall lie upon the brink
 Of human life, and death shall bid him drink
 The hemlock cup that none can put away.
 What though man turn from the unwelcome theme,
 Will Time sit still for man’s forgetfulness?—
 To watch and wake were wiser than to dream
 And wake at last to wo remediless.
MacKellar.
The world’s great age begins anew,
 The golden years return,
 The earth doth like a snake renew
 Her winter weeds outworn:
 Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
 Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
 A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
 From waves serener far;
 A new Peneus rolls its fountains
 Against the morning-star.
 Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
 Young Cyclads, on a sunnier deep;
 A loftier Argos cleaves the main,
 Fraught with a later prize;
 Another Orpheus sings again,
 And loves, and weeps, and dies.
 A new Ulysses leaves once more
 Calypso for his native shore.
 Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,
 If earth Death’s scroll must be!
 Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
 Which dawns upon the free:
 Although a subtile sphinx renew
 Riddles of death Thebes never knew,
 Another Athens shall arise,
 And to remoter time
 Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
 The splendour of its prime;
 And leave, if naught so bright may live,
 All earth can take or heaven can give.
 Saturn and Love their long repose
 Shall burst, more wise and good
 Than all who fell, than one who rose,
 Than many unwithstood—
 Not gold, nor blood, their altar dowers,
 But native tears and symbol flowers.
 Oh cease! must hate and death return?
 Cease! must men kill and die?
 Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
 Of bitter prophecy.
 The world is weary of the past—
 Oh, might it die or rest at last!
Shelley.