Classic Poem

FOR A SWEET JAR .

Through freezing hours would you pervade your rooms
With each fine odour of the summer-blooms,
Learn from the Muse to form the fragrant spell,
And bid her rhymes its artful process tell.

When Spring's first sweets the pendant violets pour,
Strew, with unsparing hand, that lovely flower;
When Fraxanella's spicy sighs exhale,
And pale Syringas languish on the gale;
When all the aromatic tribe entwine
Their vernal garlands round Hygeia's shrine,
Crop the rich spoils beneath the noon-day sun,
And be with these thy grateful task begun!
Then when the nymph, that decks the glowing year,
Bids to the day her loveliest boast appear,
As her gay rose expands its crimson gems,
Of the bright offspring rob the parent stems;
From noon to noon the splendid foliage lay,
The added heaps shall added sweets convey;
And scarce less liberally, to swell thy hoard,
Her spikes let azure lavender afford;
From orange-groves be silvery blooms consign'd,
With starry jessamine of scent refined.
From the soft umbrage of Idalian bowers
Bid graceful myrtles shed their blossom'd showers:
And, emulous of raspberry's tempting sweet,
Let mignionets their floral sisters greet.
With cinnamon let cloves and mace descend,
And in the marble vase their virtues blend,
One ounce of each; — and then, with sparing hand,
Bid luscious musk his potent scent expand,
A few small grains; — dispersing 'mid the rest,
No sick'ning odours shall the sense molest,
But, when time mellows their too cloying power,
They shall increase the sweets of spice and flower.

Yet liberal most the snowy mineral spread
Between each layer, in sparkling plenty shed,
Since where bright Salt her crystalines extends,
She brings an active host of powerful friends,
To whose pervading and protecting sway,
Fell Dissolution yields his languid prey.

And you, who wish your breathing flowers may rise
With scent primeval, on December's skies,
Still, as you spread them, every layer between,
Profusely let this white preserver gleam,
While scantier sprinklings of the spicy dust,
By art thus blended, aid the poignant gust.

And let each rising morn behold with care
Thy busy fingers mix each former layer;
And be that task renew'd when setting light
Resigns her faded empire to the night.

So shall no taint pollute thy treasured flowers,
No must offensive foil their fragrant powers;
But odours, rich as those of Saba's vale,
Rise on hybernal Albion's bleakest gale,
Sweets, which the breath of her gay months excells,
While in thy vase eternal summer dwells.