The Cactus Speciosissimus

Who hung thy beauty on such ragged stalk,Thou glorious flower?Who poured the richest hues,In varying radiance, o'er thine ample brow,And, like a mesh, those tissued stamens laidUpon thy crimson lip?Thou glorious flower!Methinks it were no sin to worship thee,Such passport hast thou from thy Maker's hand,To thrill the soul. Lone, on thy leafless stem,Thou bidd'st the queenly rose, with all her buds,Do homage, and the greenhouse peerage bowTheir rainbow coronets.Hast thou no thought?No intellectual life? thou who can'st wakeMan's heart to such communings? no sweet wordWith which to answer him? 'T would almost seem

That so much beauty needs must have a soul,And that such form as tints the gazer's dream,Held higher spirit than the common clodOn which we tread.Yet while we muse, a blightSteals o'er thee, and thy shrinking bosom showsThe mournful symptoms of a wan disease.—I will not stay to see thy beauty fade.——Still must I bear away within my heartThy lesson of our own mortality;The fearful withering of each blossomed boughOn which we lean, of every bud we fainWould hide within our bosoms from the touchOf the destroyer.So instruct us, Lord!Thou Father of the sunbeam and the soul,Even by the simple sermon of a flower,To cling to Thee.