The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 3.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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[70] Pure thoughts and sweet like flowers unfold,
     And precious memories round it cling,
Even as the Prophet's rod of old
     In beauty blossoming:
And buds of feeling, pure and good,
     Spring from its cold unconscious wood.

Relic of Freedom's shrine! a brand
     Plucked from its burning! let it be
Dear as a jewel from the hand
     Of a lost friend to me!
Flower of a perished garland left,
     Of life and beauty unbereft!

Oh, if the young enthusiast bears,
     O'er weary waste and sea, the stone
Which crumbled from the Forum's stairs,
     Or round the Parthenon;
Or olive-bough from some wild tree
     Hung over old Thermopylae:

If leaflets from some hero's tomb,
     Or moss-wreath torn from ruins hoary;
Or faded flowers whose sisters bloom
     On fields renowned in story;
Or fragment from the Alhambra's crest,
     Or the gray rock by Druids blessed;

Sad Erin's shamrock greenly growing
     Where Freedom led her stalwart kern,
Or Scotia's ‘rough bur thistle’ blowing
     On Bruce's Bannockburn;
Or Runnymede's wild English rose,
     Or lichen plucked from Sempach's snows!