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[158] What mean those gentle flowers?
     So sweetly smiling in the face of wrath—
Children of genial suns and fostering showers.
     Now crushed and trampled in the million's path—
What do they, withering here?
     Ah! spurn them not? they tell of sorrow's flow—
There has been one to shed affection's tear,
     And 'mid a nation's joy, to feel a pang of woe!

No! scorn them not, those flowers,
     They speak too deeply to each feeling heart—
They tell that Guilt hath still its holier hours—
     That none may e'er from earth unmourned depart;
That none bath all effaced
     The spell of Eden o'er his spirit cast,
The heavenly image in his features traced—
     Or quenched the love unchanging to the last!


Another of the “Historic Pencilings,” was on the “Death of Pericles.” This was its last stanza:

No! let the brutal conqueror
     Still glut his soul with war,
And let the ignoble million
     With shouts surround his car;
But dearer far the lasting fame
     Which twines its wreaths with peace—
Give me the tearless memory
     Of the mighty one of Greece.

Only one of his poems seems to have been inspired by the tender passion. It is dated May 31st, 1834. Who this bright Vision was to whom the poem was addressed, or whether it was ever visible to any but the poet's eye, has not transpired.

Fantasies.

They deem me cold, the thoughtless and light-hearted,
     In that I worship not at beauty's shrine;


New York. Mason. Brothers. . 1855.

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