To My Sister - With An Ivy Wreath On Her Birth-Day Poem by Mary Anne Browne

Another year hath roll'd away ;
Summer gives place to Autumn's gloom,
And lengthen'd night and shorten'd day
Proclaim my sister's birthday come.

Then, Martha, while thine hand receives
The wreaths that mine for thee hath twin'd,
Read in their dark-green shining leaves
A useful lesson to thy mind.

Virtue, like them, is ever green,
Like them, fresh graces can impart,
Enlivening the gloomiest scene,
And lightening the heaviest heart.

That ivy deck'd its parent tree,
On whose young bosom it was born ;
And so shall virtue be to thee,
Gracing thy life's fair opening morn.

In later times it still shall twine,
Encircling its native stem ;
It shall support thy life's decline, -
Its leaves thy emerald diadem.

'Twill guide thee in the way of love,
'Twill grace thee when those locks are snow ;
And in the blessed realms above,
'Twill be the crown to bind thy brow.