THE DUSTY WHITE ROSE.

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BY MRS. VOLNEY E. HOWARD.

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This is not thy place—oh! thou dusty white rose,

This is not thy place, by the dusty highway,

Thou shouldst bud where the murmuring rivulet flows,

And sings itself off through the meadows away.

Yes—there is thy place, on the distant green lea,

Where the sweet hawthorn blossoms, and wild warblers sing.

There, fanned by the zephyr, and woo’d by the bee,

Thou mightst rival thy fair sister buds of the spring.

Thou remindest me much, oh! thou poor blighted flower,

Of a fair human blossom, I met on life’s way;

She struggled and liv’d through dark Destiny’s hour,

But like thine, has her young bloom all wilted away.

In life’s rugged pathway, it is not the bright,

Lovely blossoms of beauty that soonest depart,

Far more do I grieve how soon sullies the light,

The pure and untainted,—the bloom of the heart.

Jackson, Md. 1841.