FLOWER FANCIES.
Reading edition
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BY MRS. H. MARION STEPHENS.
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Angel tokens—flower fancies—
Wrought with bright imaginings—
Evermore the vision glances
On your rainbow-tinted wings!
Underneath the wild-wood dreaming,
Type of all that’s pure in heart,
Or upon the hill-top gleaming,
Gems of beauty still thou art!
Angel tokens—ever filling
Nature’s book with flowing rhyme,
Bearing in your silent trilling
Records quaint of olden time;
Or in strange devices wreathing
Wisdom in your swift decay,
While your last faint sigh is breathing
“Man’s the creature of a day.”
Angel tokens—flower fancies—
Sea and sky have gone to sleep!
Why, when slumber all entrances,
Do ye wake and sadly weep?
Are ye spirits watching o’er us,
And the tears upon your leaves,
Do they fall for cures before us—
Is’t for this your bosom grieves?
Angel tokens—flower fancies—
Winter’s breath is on ye now
And your perfumed leaves are falling
Crisped and shriveled from the bough—
Yet when spring, with winter striving,
O’er the earth asserts her reign,
With her smile your buds reviving,
Ye will blossom bright again!
Angel tokens—springing lightly
Through the glorious summer day,
Oh! could we but bloom as brightly,
And as brightly pass away—
Could our winter, death, victorious
O’er the cold and cheerless sod
Bear us on in bloom, thus glorious,
To the garden of our God!