III. The Flax-Flower.

“What rapid growth, what fading mien! Blue flow’ret of the flax so green! The sun has reached its highest glory; This morn you, blooming, charmed the sight, And now, alas! in shrivelled plight, You tell us quite a gloomy story! I say, without disguise or fear, Were I, you darling flax-flower here, I’d bloom away the live-long year!

—Yes; that’s indeed a pretty thought, If mirth and dress are only sought, Not solid use from the beginning; These charming flowers which here you see, May not with me the chief things be....” I form the threads that serve for spinning, And linseed-oil for merchants’ gain— Did I from blooming ne’er abstain, Where would your shirts, I ask, remain?

When winter cold frequents our ground, Then many an idle plant is found, On dunghill trodden or upturned. Though twice to die it be my fate I live again for small and great. Lo! linen, friends! has paper earned, On which, in letters, we may read: “Though I did bloom, this was my creed, What useful is, that ’s fine indeed!”