Horace Smith

On a Greenhouse

Here, from earth's dædal heights and dingles lowly,
The representatives of nature meet;
Not like a congress or alliance holy
Of kings, to rivet chains, but with their sweet
Blossomy mouths to preach the love complete,
That with pearled mistletoe and beaded holly
Clothed them in green unchangeable, to greet
Winter with smiles and banish melancholy.

l envy not the Emathian madman's fame,
Who won the world and built immortal shame
On tears and blood; but if some flower, new-found,
In its embalming cup might shroud my name,
Mine were a tomb more worthily renowned
Than Cheops' pile or Artemisia's mound.