In fancifully plumed array, As ever cloud at set of day, All azure, vermil, silver-gray, And showering thick perfume, See! how the Lilac's clustered spray Has kindled into bloom, Radiant, as Joy, o'er troubles past, And whispering, Spring is come at last!" Blest Flowers! There breathes not one unfraught The Rose, in Taste's own garden wrought; The purple Heath, so lone and fair, As gems of night, And fresh and fragrant, all the year; The Hawthorn's smile, the Poppy's glow, The flowers are culled; and each lithe stem. With Woodbine, type of Life's best gem, The Wreath is wove; do Thou, blest Power, O make it such as angels wear, Pure, bright, as deck'd earth's first-born pair, Whilst, free in Eden's grove, From herb and plant they brushed the dew, And neither sin nor sorrow knew. THE USE OF FLOWERS. BY MARY HOWITT. GOD might have bade the earth bring forth The oak-tree and the cedar-tree, He might have made enough, enough, For luxury, medicine, and toil, And yet have made no flowers. The ore within the mountain-mme Nor doth it need the lotus flower To make the river flow. The clouds might give abundant rain, Then, wherefore, wherefore were they made Springing in valleys green and low, Our outward life requires them not- To comfort man-to whisper hope For who so careth for the flowers, FLOWERS: SENT ME DURING ILLNESS. BY RICHARD H. DANA. I loved you ever, gentle flowers, In secret to my soul, To shed a softness through my ripening powers, And lead the thoughtful mind to deepest truth. And now, when weariness and pain Had cast you almost from my breast, With each a smiling face, In all your simple grace, You come once more to take me back again Kind visitants! through my sick room To wake again the boy, And to the pallid cheek restore its bloom, And o'er the desert mind pour boundless wealth. And whence ye came, by brimming stream, 'Neath rustling leaves, with birds within, Again I musing tread Forgot my restless bed, And long, sick hours.-Too short the blessed dream! I woke to pain!-to hear the city's din! But time nor pain shall ever steal Though few with me your hours, THE SENSITIVE PLANT. BY SHELLY. PART I. A SENSITIVE plant in a garden grew, And the spring arose on the garden fair, |