Another year hath roll'd away ; <br />Summer gives place to Autumn's gloom, <br />And lengthen'd night and shorten'd day <br />Proclaim my sister's birthday come. <br /> <br />Then, Martha, while thine hand receives <br />The wreaths that mine for thee hath twin'd, <br />Read in their dark-green shining leaves <br />A useful lesson to thy mind. <br /> <br />Virtue, like them, is ever green, <br />Like them, fresh graces can impart, <br />Enlivening the gloomiest scene, <br />And lightening the heaviest heart. <br /> <br />That ivy deck'd its parent tree, <br />On whose young bosom it was born ; <br />And so shall virtue be to thee, <br />Gracing thy life's fair opening morn. <br /> <br />In later times it still shall twine, <br />Encircling its native stem ; <br />It shall support thy life's decline, - <br />Its leaves thy emerald diadem. <br /> <br />'Twill guide thee in the way of love, <br />'Twill grace thee when those locks are snow ; <br />And in the blessed realms above, <br />'Twill be the crown to bind thy brow.<br /><br />Mary Anne Browne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-my-sister-with-an-ivy-wreath-on-her-birth-day/
