Old Families Are Like Old Flowers

Old families are like old flowers; when we return, After long years to some deserted home, Of crumbling wall and staring front, and yearn For old familiars that now elsewhere roam.

Though flapping board and tangled path foretell That nature back into her bosom green, Will take all these in her unhasting spell, One pledge we find to stay the changing scene.

For bravely still where rose the garden bound, The lusty hollyhock proclaims its youth; Tansy and morning glory hold their ground, And the paled rose surrenders not its truth.

These shall remain though all else goes its way, Less than a Mayan mystery to become, And shall retrieve some sweet forgotten day, Though of its glory but the final sum.

So mid old towns decaying, quaint and gray, Which once we knew but which know us no more, Some lone name clings, scent of an earlier day, Of some home circle and bright hearth of yore.

Gone now that hearth, that home perchance, yet still, Abides this token of once happier hours, Some human bloom its memories to distill; Proving old families are like old flowers.