SWEET flower of the valley, why droopest thou so low, Ah! why is thy beauty all faded and gone, Ah! who could destroy thee -- who wield the sad blow, Who rifle thy charms in their earliest dawn? So gay was the morning, that rose as you blew, So fragrant the zephyrs that fluttered around -- So soft did'st thou smile through thy mantle of dew, No lovelier flower in the valley was found. But see, on the turf all thy beauties are laid, Thy leaves, they are scattered, thy sweetness is gone: Thy colours -- once gay as the rainbow -- now fade As fast, as the hues that enliven the dawn. Sweet flower! once the sweetest that bloomed in the vale -- Sweet flower! we will weep, for thy beauties are fled -- For those charms that are gone we will pour the sad wail, And chant o'er thy ruins the dirge of the dead. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AN HYMN IN HONOUR OF BEAUTY by EDMUND SPENSER THE DANUBE RIVER by C. HAMILTON AIDE AFTER SUNSET by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM DESERT by PATRICK JOHN MCALISTER ANDERSON TO THE NEW YEAR, 1823 by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD THE FLOWER-GATHERERS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN EVENING by WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE MAXIMS FOR THE OLD HOUSE: THE HEARTH by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH |