And shuns the falser gloss of art;
'Tis he extracts a bliss refined,
Congenial to the virtuous mind,
The tender feeling heart.

Thy smiles young innocence invite,
What time thy lids awake,
In shadowy lane to taste delight,
Or mazy tangled brake.

The infant troop of rosy hue,

And gay with health I seem to view,

While pleasure lights their laughing eyes;

With little hands a wreath combine,

Their fugitive delights entwine,

And boast their fragrant prize.

Ah! happy breasts! unknown to pain,
I would not spoil your joys;
Nor vainly teach you to complain

Of life's delusive toys.

Be jocund still, still sport and smile,
Nor dream of woe or future guile;
For soon shall ye awaken'd find
The joys of life's sad thorny way,
But fading flowerets of a day

Cut down by every wind.

THE VIOLET.

BY BARRY CORNWALL.

I LOVE all things the seasons bring,
All buds that start, all birds that sing,
All leaves, from white to jet;

All the sweet words that Summer sends,
When she recalls her flowery friends,
But chief-the Violet !

I love, how much I love the rose,
On whose soft lips the South-wind blows,
In pretty amorous threat;

The lily paler than the moon,

The odorous wondrous world of June,
Yet more-the Violet!

She comes-the first, the fairest thing
That Heaven upon the earth doth fling,
Ere Winter's star has set;

She dwells behind her leafy screen,
And gives, as angels give, unseen:
So, love-the Violet!

What modest thoughts the Violet teaches,
What gracious boons the Violet preaches,
Bright maiden, ne'er forget!

But learn, and love, and so depart,
And sing thou, with thy wiser heart,

"Long live the Violet!"

FADED FLOWERS.

BY MISS JEWSBURY.

FADED flowers,

Sweet faded flowers,

Beauty and death

Have ruled your hours,

Ye woke in bloom but a morn ago,

And now are your blossoms in dust laid low.

But yesterday

With the breeze ye strove,

In the play of life,

In the pride of love;

To and fro swung each radiant head,

That now is drooping, and pale, and dead!

Delicate flower,

With the pearl-white bells,

No more shall dew-drop

Sleep in thy cells!

No more, rich rose, on thy heaving breast,

The honey-bee fold his wings to rest!

Fair myrtle-tree,

Thy blossoms lie low,
But green above them
Thy branches grow;

Like a buried love, or a vanish'd joy,
Link'd unto memories none destroy.

Faded flowers,

Sweet faded flowers

Fair frail records

Of Eden's bowers;

In a world where sorrow and wrong bear sway, Why should ye linger ?-Away! away!

What were the emblems

Pride to stain,

Might ye your glorious

Crowns retain ?

And what for the young heart, bow'd with grief, Were the rose ne'er seen with a wither'd leaf?

Ye bloom to tell us
What once hath been;

What yet shall in heaven

Again be seen;

Ye die, that man in his strength may learn,

How vain the hopes in his heart that burn.

Many in form,

And bright in hue!

I know your fate,

But the earth to strew,

And my soul flies on to immortal bowers,
Where the heart and the rose are not faded flowers.

THE ROSES.

BY BOWRING.

I SAW them once blowing,
While morning was glowing;

But now are their wither'd leaves strew'd o'er the

ground,

For tempests to play on,

For cold worms to prey on,

The shame of the garden that triumphs around.

Their buds which then flourish'd,

With dew-drops were nourish'd,

Which turn'd into pearls as they fell from on high Their hues are all banish'd,

Their fragrance all vanish'd,

Ere evening a shadow has cast from the sky.

I saw, too, whole races

Of glories and graces

Thus open and blossom, but quickly decay;
And smiling and gladness,

In sorrow and sadness,

Ere life reach'd its twilight, fade dimly away.

Joy's light-hearted dances,

And melody's glances,