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THE DAISY.

ON FINDING ONE IN BLOOM ON CHRISTMAS-DAY.

THERE is a flower, a little flower,
With silver crest and golden eye,
That welcomes every changing hour,
And weathers every sky.

The prouder beauties of the field,

In gay but quick succession shine; Race after race their honours yield, They flourish and decline.

But this small flower, to Nature dear,

While moons and stars their courses run, Wreathes the whole circle of the year, Companion of the sun.

It smiles upon the lap of May,

To sultry August spreads its charms,
Lights pale October on its way,
And twines December's arms.

The purple heath, and golden broom,
On moory mountains catch the gale;
O'er lawns the lily sheds perfume,
The violet in the vale:

THE DAISY.

But this bold floweret climbs the hill,
Hides in the forest, haunts the glen,
Plays on the margin of the rill,
Peeps round the fox's den.

Within the garden's cultured round
It shares the sweet carnation's bed;
And blooms in consecrated ground
In honour of the dead.

The lambkin crops its crimson gem;
The wild-bee murmurs on its breast;
The blue-fly bends its pensile stem,
Light o'er the skylark's nest.

"Tis Flora's page ;-in every place,
In every season fresh and fair,
It opens with perennial grace,
And blossoms everywhere.

On waste and woodland, rock and plain,
Its humble buds unheeded rise;
The rose has but a summer reign,
The daisy never dies.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

23

THE GARDEN.

A SENSITIVE plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it open'd its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
And the Spirit of Love fell everywhere;

And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

The snowdrop, and then the violet,

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,
And their breath was mix'd with fresh odour, sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.

Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness;

Who gaze on their

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,

Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale,
That the light of its tremulous bell is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;

HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE.

And the hyacinth, purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew,
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,

It was felt like an odour within the sense;

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,
The sweetest flower for scent that blows;

And all rare blossoms from every clime
Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

SHELLEY.

HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE.

How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes bless'd !
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there.

COLLINS.

25

INSECTS.

OBSERVE the insect race, ordain'd to keep
The lazy Sabbath of a half-year's sleep.
Entomb'd beneath the filmy web they lie,
And wait the influence of a kinder sky.
When vernal sunbeams pierce their dark retreat,
The heaving tomb distends with vital heat;
The full-form'd brood, impatient of their cell,
Start from their trance, and burst their silken shell.
Trembling awhile they stand, and scarcely dare
To launch at once upon the untried air.

At length assured, they catch the favouring gale,
And leave their sordid spoils, and high in ether sail.

Lo! the bright train their radiant wings unfold, With silver fringed, and freckled o'er with gold. On the gay bosom of some fragrant flower, They, idly fluttering, live their little hour; Their life all pleasure, and their task all play, All spring their age, and sunshine all their day. Not so the child of sorrow, wretched man : His course with toil concludes, with pain began, That his high destiny he might discern, And in misfortune's school this lesson learn— Pleasure's the portion of the inferior kind, But glory, virtue, Heaven for man design'd.

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