When true hearts lie wither'd THE RHODORA. LINES ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER? BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON. In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, To please the desert and the sluggish brook; The purple petals, fallen in the pool, Made the black waters with their beauty gay; Young RAPHAEL might covet such a school; The lively show beguiled me from my way. Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the marsh and sky, Dear, tell them, that if eyes were made for seeing Then beauty is its own excuse for being. Why, thou wert there, O, rival of the rose! I never thought to ask, I never knew, But in my simple ignorance suppose The selfsame Power that brought me there, brought you. THE EVENING PRIMROSE. BY G. LANGHORNE. THERE are that love the shades of life, That far from envy's lurid eye In friendship's small but kindly sphere. Than vainer flowers, though sweeter far, In Eden's vale an aged hind, At the dim's twilight's closing hour, On his time-smoothed staff reclined, With wonder view'd the opening flower. "Ill-fated flower, at eve to blow," แ (In pity's simple thought he cries,) Thy bosom must not feel the glow Of splendid suns, or smiling skies. "Nor thee the vagrants of the field, "Nor thee the hasty shepherd heeds, When love has fill'd his heart with cares: For flowers he rifles all the meads; For walking flowers-but thine forbears. "Ah! waste no more that beauteous bloom, On night's chill shade that fragrant breath; Let smiling suns those gems illume? Fair flower! to live unseen is death!" Soft as the voice of vernal gales That o'er the bending meadows blow, Or streams that steal through even vales, And murmur that they move so slow. Deep in her unfrequented bower, Sweet Philomela pour'd her strain; "Live unseen! By moonlight shades, in valleys green, But I love the modest mien, Still I love the modest mien Of gentle evening fair, and her star-train'd queen. "Didst thou, shepherd, never find Pleasure is of pensive kind? Has thy cottage never known Go, and in day's more dangerous hour, 5 THE WINTER NOSEGAY. BY WILLIAM COWPER. WHAT nature, alas! has denied Art has in a measure supplied, And winter is deck'd with a smile. See, Mary, what beauties I bring From the shelter of that sunny shed, Where the flowers have the charms of the spring Though abroad they are frozen and dead. 'Tis a bower of Arcadian sweets, Where Flora is still in her prime, A fortress to which she retreats From the cruel assaults of the clime. While earth wears a mantle of snow, These pinks are as fresh and as gay See how they have safely survived |