CUPID AND THE DIAL.
ONE day, young frolic Cupid tried
To scatter roses o'er the hours,
And on the dial's face to hide
The course of time with many flowers.
By chance, his rosy wreaths had wound
Upon the hands, and forced them on;
And when he look'd again, he found
The hours had pass'd, the time was done.
"Alas!" said love, and dropp'd his flowers, "I've lost my time in idle play;
The sweeter I would make the hours,
The quicker they are pass'd away.'
THE CLOSED CONVOLVULLS.
An hour ago, and sunny beams
Were glancing o'er each airy bell;
And thou wert drinking in those gleams,
Like beauty listening love's farewell.
And now with folded drooping leaves,
Thou seemest for that light to mourn,
Like unto one who fondly grieves
The hours that stay some friend's return.
We cannot trace the hidden power
Which folds thine azure petals up,
When evening shadows dimly lower,
And dew-drops gem each floweret's cup.
Methinks I should not wish to be
Like thee, a votary of the sun,
To bask beneath his beams, yet flee
Whene'er his brilliant race is run.
O dearer far the silent night,
And lovelier far the star-lit sky, Than gaudy day with sunbeams bright, And loud with nature's minstrelsy.
The night-bird's song is not for thee,
The beautiful, the silver moon,
The holy calm o'er flowers and tree;
The stillness-nature's dearest boon.
Thou art a reveller of day,
A fair, rejoicing child of light;
Glad, while the sunbeams o'er thee play,
But drooping in the quiet night.
Like unto those who freely spend
Their kindness in our happier hours,
But should affliction want a friend,
They prove the sun's adoring flowers.
SWEET Lucy has chosen the lily, as pale,
And as lowly as she, still the pride of the vale:
An emblem more fitting, so fair and retired,
Heart could not have chosen, nor fancy desired.
And Ellen, gay Ellen, a symbol as true,
In the hare-bell has found, and its delicate blue:
For ever the blossoms are fresh in her eyes,
As dewy, as sweet, and more soft than the skies.
And Jane, in her thoughtfulness, conscious of
power,
Has gazed in her fervour on many a flower:
Has chosen, rejected, then many combined
To blazon her graces of person and mind.
Whilst Isabel's face, like the dawn, in one flush-
Far need she not wander to bank and to bush;
Well the tint of her cheek the young Isabel
knows,
For the blossom of health is the beautiful rose.
And Mary, the pensive, who loves in the dusk
Of the gardens to muse, when the air is all musk;
Will leave all its beauties, and many they are,
To gaze, meek in thought, on the jessamine star.
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