Then, in the summer heat,
Have form'd a cool retreat,

Where lovers' vows are heard;

And, holding in your arms the mossy nest,
With gentle motion might have lull'd to rest
The little trembling bird.

And when the morning's beam
Did on your beauties gleam,

And dewdrops glitter'd your gay leaves among, Your kindly shelter would have been repaid By gentle voices in the greenwood shade,

Caroll'd in warblings wild, or plaintive song.

Alas! the winter's storm
The sunny skies deform,

And even now ye die!

Soon wither'd, dropping from the shrivell'd stem, Your early promise lost, each little gem

Unwept, forgotten, on the earth must lie!

So have I seen some early bud of youth
Bloom 'neath the sunny skies of love and truth,
And flourish sweetly there,

So bright! so beautiful! Death might not come
Within the circle of that happy home,

Such treasur'd bliss to mar!

It might not come! Bid the wind cease to blow;
Bid the storm subside; the falling snow

Within the clouds remain:

And when they hearken to the bidding, say
To the stern tyrant, Death, "Away! away!
Earth owns no more thy power, nor dreads
thy name!"

E. P.

BRING FLOWERS.

BRING flowers, young flowers, for the festal board,
To wreathe the cup, ere the wine is pour❜d:

Bring flowers! they are springing in wood and vale,
Their breath floats out on the southern gale;
And the touch of the sunbeam hath waked the rose
To deck the hall where the bright wine flows.

Bring flowers to strew the conqueror's path,—
He hath shaken the world with his stormy wrath;
He comes with the spoils of nations back,
The vines lie crush'd in his chariot-track,
The turf looks red where he won the day,-
Bring flowers to die in the conqueror's way!
Bring flowers to the captive's lonely cell,
They have tales of the joyous woods to tell;
Of the free blue streams, and the glowing sky,
And the bright world shut from his languid eye;
They will bear him a thought of the sunny hours,
And a dream of his youth. Bring him flowers, wild
flowers.

Bring flowers, fresh flowers, for the bride to wear!
They were born to blush in her shining hair;
She is leaving the home of her childish mirth,
She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth;
Her place is now by another's side,-

Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young bride!
Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed,
A crown for the brow of the early dead!

For this through its leaves hath the white rose burst,
For this in the woods was the violet nurst.

Though they smile in vain for what once was ours. They are Love's last gift. Bring flowers, pale flowers!

Bring flowers to the shrine where we kneel in prayer,
They are Nature's offering, their place is there!
They speak of hope to the fainting heart,
With a voice of promise they come and part:
They sleep in dust through the wintry hours,
They break forth in glory. Bring flowers, bright
flowers!
MRS. HEMANS.

THE ROSE.

DEAR Flower of that bright and adored spot of earth, Where beauty, and grandeur, and glory have birth; Where the blossom ne'er fades, and the bloom never

dies,

But blossom and bloom on their ashes will rise; Where the blade in high verdure through winter is

seen,

And the leaf never fails in its eye-soothing green; Where the skies, though they weep, yet remain undefiled

As the innocent soul of some unweaned child. And the tendrils that cling, and the blossoms that

move,

At heaven's balmy breath, seem all cradled in love. Even there thou art peerless, bright Flower! and doth shine

To the eye and the heart like a something divine. Though the freshness of blossoms, drawn forth by

the ray

Of the soul-warming sun, may make balmy the

day;

Though the glory of sunlight may waken perfume

From the depth of the lotus in fulness of bloom;

And incense, let loose by the buzz of the bee,

May rise up to heaven from each floret or tree;
And the moonbeam, with tenderest kissing, may close
The lips of the violet, and guard its repose;
And a thousand bright florets rejoice in the beam
Of the sun, with young halcyons beside the still
stream,

Expanding in love their soft forms to the sky,
In colours that seem all too lovely to die;
And utter strange visions of worlds, far too bright
To gleam on the web of a mortal's weak sight,
As the morning mists rise, or the night shadows fall;
Yet still, peerless Flower! thou art dearer than all!
For whenever we look on thy blossom, we find
Some sweet morals springing like flowers in the
[trace,
Early love in thy spring-bud some semblance may
And thy blush finds an echo in young Beauty's face;
While those feelings that lie, like the pearls in the sea,
Too deep for our gaze, seem reflected on thee,
And are back to the spirit resplendently given,
As the unruffled deep shows the brightness of heaven.

mind.

O Beauty! thou lovely and terrible thing,

Like the lightning so bright and so withering, Say, who hath not bent, with a trembling knee And a burning brow, like a slave, to thee? From each snow-bound pole to the burning zone, Thy altars are reared, and thy worship is known. We lift up our sorrowful eyes to heaven,

With the furrow'd brow and bosom of pain, When the spirit is grieved and the heart wrung and

riven,

And all of this earth is accounted but vain.

But the joys of youth's morn and its sunny things, And its newly fledged hopes and imaginings; And the soft virgin sighs that escape the breast, Ere that glorious temple lit up within

By the Godhead's smile, hath been once oppress'd With the sorrows of earth, or the grief of sin: These, these, proud Beauty! are offered to thee, In the face of a glorious Deity.

Fair emblem, then, of that power whose laws
Earth's millions in general throng obey,-
Whose smile unfetters the tongue, and draws
Homage from bosoms too fierce to pray.
Fair Flower!-like to thee doth Beauty bloom!
Thou but to fade!-she for the tomb.
Her fate, like thine, cometh on when skies
Seem to brighten whatever they look upon;
"Tis hers to fade ere the summer flies,

And a few short hours, and thou art gone.
The worm, in thy brightest and earliest days,
E'en on thy tenderest blossom preys;
And love, like that worm or some tyrant care,
Gnaws into the heart, and would surfeit there.
Oh! art thou not cropp'd in thy glorious spring,
Placed to the breast, but yet placed to die;
Then thrown away, like a worthless thing,
Without one pitying tear or sigh!

Alas! alas! frail Beauty, 'tis thine

To feel the compunctionless spoiler's blow,To be laid for awhile on a glittering shrine, Then cast away,-e'en to wither so.

Then vaunt thee no more in thy chamber, maid,

Nor in eye-bright smiles thy dark tresses braid;