Perennials

Life is a journey, and its fairest flowers
Lie in our path beneath pride's trampling feet;
Oh, let us stoop to virtue's humble bowers,
And gather those, which, faded, still are sweet.

These way-side blossoms amulets are of price;
They lead to pleasure, yet from dangers warn;-
Turn toil to bliss, this earth to Paradise,
And sunset death to heaven's eternal morn.

A good deed done hath memory's blest perfume,-
A day of self-forgetfulness, all given
To holy charity, hath perennial bloom
That goes, undrooping, up from earth to heaven.

Forgiveness, too, will flourish in the skies-
Justice, transplanted thither, yields fair fruit;
And if repentance, borne to heaven, dies,
'Tis that no tears are there to wet its root.