The Poems of Henry Kendall

The Ivy on the Wall

Henry Kendall


THE VERDANT ivy clings around
    Yon moss be-mantled wall,
As if it sought to hide the stones,
    That crumbling soon must fall:
That relic of a bygone age
    Now tottering to decay,
Has but one friend—the ivy—left.
    The rest have passed away.

The fairy flowers that once did bloom
    And smile beneath its shade;
They lingered till the autumn came,
    And autumn saw them fade:
The emerald leaves that blushed between—
    The winds away have blown;
But yet to cheer the mournful scene,
    The ivy liveth on.

Thus heavenly hope will still survive,
    When earthly joys have fled;
And all the flow’ry dreams of youth
    Lie withering and dead.
When Winter comes—it twines itself
    Around the human heart;
And like the ivy on the wall
    Will ne’er from thence depart.


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