The Mystery of Nature.

"Then shrink not from the gorgeous spring,

For all her flowers are born

Blest harbingers, to herald forth

The resurrection morn.

"And dream of dreariness no more,
But rouse thee, toil and pray;
So thou in thine own lot mayst stand,
Safe on that awful day."

Hymns and Poems.

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THE PAST.

THE past is very tender at my heart;
Full, as the memory of an ancient friend
When once again we stand beside his grave.
Raking amongst old papers thrown in haste
'Mid useless lumber, unawares I came

On a forgotten poem of my youth.

I went aside and read each faded page

Warm with dead passion, sweet with buried Junes, Filled with the light of suns that are no more.

I stood like one who finds a golden tress

Given by loving hands no more on earth,
And starts, beholding how the dust of years,
Which dims all else, has never touched its light.

ALEX. SMITH.

W

DIVERS PROVIDENCES.

HEN all the year our fields are fresh and green, And while sweet showers and sunshine every day,

As oft as need requireth, come between

The heavens and earth, they heedless pass away.
The fulness and continuance of a blessing

Doth make us to be senseless of the good;
And if sometimes it fly not our possessing,
The sweetness of it is not understood.
Had we no winter, summer would be thought

Not half so pleasing; and if tempests were not,
Such comforts by a calm could not be brought;

For things save by their opposites appear not.
Both health and wealth are tasteless unto some,
And so is ease and every other pleasure;
Till poor, or sick, or grieved they become,
And then they relish these in ampler measure.
God, therefore, full as kind as He is wise,

So tempereth all the favours He will do us,

Divers Providences.

That we his bounties may the better prize,
And make his chastisements less bitter to us.
One while, a scorching indignation burns

The flowers and blossoms of our hope away,
Which into scarcity our plenty turns,

And changeth new-mown grass to parched hay; Anon, his fruitful showers and pleasing dews,

Commixed with cheerful rays, He sendeth down, And then the barren earth her crops renews, Which with rich harvests hills and valleys crown; For as, to relish joys, He sorrow sends,

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So comfort on temptation still attends.

WITHER.

THE WALLFLOWER.

HY loves my flower, so high reclined
Upon these walls of barren gloom,
To waste her sweetness on the wind,

And far from every eye to bloom?
Why joy to twine with golden braid
This ruined rampart's aged head,

Proud to expose her gentle form,

And swing her bright locks in the storm?

That lonely spot is bleak and hoar,

Where prints my flower her fragrant kiss;
Yet sorrow hangs not fonder o'er
The ruins of her faded bliss.

And wherefore will she thus inweave
The owl's lone couch, and feel at eve
The wild bat o'er her blossoms fling,
And strike them down with heedless wing?

Thus gazing on the loftiest tower

Of ruined FORE at eventide,

The Wallflower.

The Muse addressed a lonely flower

That bloomed above in summer pride.
The Muse's eye, the Muse's ear,
Can more than others see and hear:
The breeze of evening murmured by,
And gave, she deemed, this faint reply:-

"On this lone tower, so wild and drear,
'Mid storms and clouds I love to lie,
Because I find a freedom here,

Which prouder haunts could ne'er supply.
Safe on these walls I sit, and stem
The elements that conquered them;
And high o'er reach of plundering foe,
Smile on an anxious world below.

"Though envied place I may not claim,
On warrior's crest, or lady's hair;
Though tongue may never speak my name,
Nor eye behold and own me fair;
To Him who tends me from the sky,
I spread my beauties here on high,
And bid the winds to waft above
My incense to His throne of love.

"And though in hermit solitude,

Aloft and wild, my home I choose, On the rock's bosom pillowed rude, And nurtured by the falling dews;

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