ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY.

There is a flower, whose modest mein Seems every gazer’s eye to shun; It flourishes, and fades unseen, Through tepid showers, or radiant sun.

Where warm affection sheds its tears, O’er some lost friend’s remember’d tomb, Spite of the blast, its head it rears, And seems to court the kindred gloom.

No gay parterre its blossoms share, It dwells not in the busy croud, But seeks the wild heath, bleak, and bare, Or dwells in lonely solitude.

It decks the humble, lowly dell, Remov’d afar, from vice, and strife, Where resignation loves to dwell, When ills betide this varying life.

Its blossoms bath’d in pearly dew, Its drooping crest and tearful eye, Its lovely tints of azure hue, Are emblems dear of sympathy.

The wild bee, sips its honied store, Disporting on, from flower, to flower; The humming birds its sweets explore, Shut from the precincts of the bower.

And such, fair maid, thy modest mein, It shuns the gazer’s vulgar eye, Nor seek’st thou, eager to be seen, The croud, where pleasure’s vot’ries hie.

But social virtues deck thy name, A sympathetic heart is thine, A soul that knows, nor guilt, nor shame, Fraught with fair virtue’s power divine.

Each grace that nature can impart, Each generous feeling, too is thine, Sincerity, that foe to art, Richer than diamond of the mine.

May thy resemblance e’er remain, To that soft, sympathetic flower; Thy hues of grace, without a stain, Await you to your latest hour.