To Mrs. ----, On Returning A Fine Hyacinth Plant After The Bloom Was Over Poem by Joanna Baillie

EVEN as a cherish'd daughter leaves her home
Blushing and breathing sweets; her home, where, nurs'd
With fond attendance every morn and eve,
She grew and flourish'd, and put forth her charms
In virgin purity; and to that home
From the polluted commerce of the world,
Returns with faded charms, forlorn and sad,
And soil'd and drooping locks--in such sad plight
Send I your nurseling; breathing now no more
Ambrosial sweets, nor lifting her proud stem,
Rich with enamell'd flowers, to meet the gaze
Of raptur'd florist, but return'd to lie
Low in the earth; yet, when the genial Spring
With new impulses thrills the swelling veins,
The plant may bloom again--not so the maid.