HERE are now the dreaming flowers,
Which of old were wont to lie,
Looking upwards at the hours,
In the pale blue sky?

Where's the once red regal rose?
And the lily, love enchanted?
And the pensée, which arose
Like a thought earth-planted?

Some are withered-somc are dead-
Others now have no perfume;
This doth hang its sullen head.
That hath lost its bloom.

Passions, such as nourish strife

In our blood, and quick decay, Hang upon the flower's life,

Till it fades away.

ANON.

CEDAR TREES.

HE Power that formed the violet,
The all-creating One;

He made the stately Cedar trees

That crowned Mount Lebanon.

And all within the garden

That angels came to see,

He set in groves and on the hills
The goodly Cedar tree.

There played the gladsome creatures,
Beneath its shadow dim;

And from its spreading leafy boughs
Went up the wild bird's hymn.

And Eve in her young innocence
Delayed her footsteps there;

And Adam's heart grew warm with praise
To see a tree so fair.

Cedar Trees.

And though the world was darkened
With the shade of human ill,
And man was cast from Paradise,
Yet wast thou goodly still.

And when an ancient poet

Some lofty theme would sing, He made the Cedar symbol forth Each great and glorious thing.

And royal was the Cedar

Above all other trees!

They chose of old its scented wood For kingly palaces.

And in the halls of princes,
And on the Phoenix pyre,
'Twas only noble Cedar-wood
Could feed the odorous fire.

In the temple of Jerusalem,
That glorious temple old,
They only found the Cedar-wood
To match with carved gold.

Thou great and noble Solomon,

What king was e'er like thee? Thou 'mong the princes of the earth Wast like a Cedar tree!

But the glory of the Cedar tree

Is as an old renown,

And few and dwindled grow they now
Upon Mount Lebanon.

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.

HERE is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have nought that is fair?" saith he, "Have nought but the bearded grain? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, I will give them all back again!"

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,

He kissed their drooping leaves;

It was for the Lord of Paradise

66

He bound them in their sheaves.

My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"

The Reaper said, and smiled;

"Dear tokens of the earth are they,

Where he was once a child.