Where morning paints the orient skies,
Her fingers burn with roseate dyes!
And when, at length, with pale decline,
Its florid beauties fade and pine,

Sweet as in youth its balmy breath
Diffuses odour e'en in death!

O, whence could such a plant have sprung!
Attend-for thus the tale is sung :-
When humid from the silvery stream,
Effusing beauty's warmest beam,
Venus appeared in flushing hues,
Mellowed by Ocean's briny dews;
When, in the starry courts above,
The pregnant brain of mighty Jove
Disclosed the nymph of azure glance!
The nymph who shakes the martial lance!
Then, then, in strange eventful hour,
The earth produced an infant flower,
Which sprung
with blushing tinctures dress'd,
And wanton'd o'er its parent breast.
The gods beheld this brilliant birth,
And hail'd the Rose, the boon of earth!
With nectar drops, a ruby tide,
The sweetly orient buds they dyed,
And bade them bloom, the flowers divine
Of him who sheds the teeming vine;
And bade them on the spangled thorn
Expand their bosoms to the morn.

DECISION OF THE FLOWER.

BY L. E. LANDON.

AND with scarlet poppies, around like a bower, The maiden found her mystic flower.

66

Now, gentle flower, I pray thee tell

If my lover loves me, and loves me well:
So may the fall of the morning dew
Keep the sun from fading thy tender blue,
Now I number the leaves for my lot-

He loves not-he loves me he loves me not-
He loves me-yes, thou last leaf, yes-
I'll pluck thee not for the last sweet guess!
He loves me!"-"Yes," a dear voice sigh'd,
And her lover stands by Margaret's side.

THE SNOW-DROP.

BY MARY ROBINSON.

THE Snowdrop, Winter's timid child,
Awakes to life, bedew'd with tears,
And flings around its fragrance mild;
And, where no rival flowerets bloom,
Amidst the bare and chilling gloom,

A beauteous gem appears.

All weak and wan with head inclined,
Its parent breast the drifted snow,
It trembles, while the ruthless wind
Bends its slim form; the tempest lowers,
Its emerald eye drops crystal showers
On its cold bed below.

Where'er I find thee, gentle flower,

Thou still art sweet and dear to me! For I have known the cheerless hour, Have seen the sunbeams cold and pale, Have felt the chilling wintry gale, And wept and shrunk, like thee!

DAFFODILS.

FAIR Daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon;

As yet the early rising sun

Has not attained his noon :

Stay, stay

Until the hastening day

Has run

But to the even-song,

And, having pray'd together, we

Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay as ye,

We have as fleet a spring,
As quick a growth to meet decay
As you or any thing;

We die

As your hours do, and dry
Away,

Like to the summer's rain,

Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

THE SHEPHERD TO THE FLOWERS.

BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

SWEET Violets, love's paradise, that spread
Your gracious odours, which you, couched, bear
Within your paly faces,

Upon the gentle wing of some calm.breathing

wind,

That plays amidst the plain!

If, by the favour of propitious stars, you gain, Such grace as in my lady's bosom place to find, Be proud to touch those places:

And when her warmth your moisture forth doth

wear,

Whereby her dainty parts are sweetly fed,

You, honours of the flowry meads, I pray,

You pretty daughters of the earth and sun, With mild and seemly breathing straight display My bitter sighs, that have my heart undone

HEART'S-EASE.

BY SHAKSPEARE.

I SAW,

Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd; a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned in the west.
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon.
And the imperial vot'ress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell:

It fell upon a little western flower,

Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it Love in Idleness.

The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make a man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.