We fill the air with pleasure, by our simple Unto sick and prisoned thoughts we give sud

Unto sorrow we give smiles—and unto graces, But its wall speaks loftier truth than Babylo

Though the March-winds pipe to make our Whether man or May-fly profit of the balm;

Have in us been found, and wise men find Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, In the cottage of the rudest peasant;

God hath written in those stars above; But not less in the bright flowerets under us Stands the revelation of his love.

Bright and glorious is that revelation,
Writ all over this great world of ours-
Making evident our own creation,

In these stars of earth, these golden flow

ers.

And the poet, faithful and far-seeing,

Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part Of the self-same, universal being

In ancestral homes, whose crumbling tow

ers,

Speaking of the Past unto the Present,

Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers.

In all places, then, and in all seasons,
Flowers expand their light and soul-like
wings,

Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,
How akin they are to human things.

And with childlike, credulous affection,
We behold their tender buds expand-

Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. Emblems of our own great resurrection,

Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,

Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day, Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,

Buds that open only to decay;

Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,
Flaunting gayly in the golden light;
Large desires, with most uncertain issues,
Tender wishes, blossoming at night!

Emblems of the bright and better land.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

HYMN TO THE FLOWERS.

DAY-STARS! that ope your eyes with morn to twinkle

From rainbow galaxies of earth's creation,

These in flowers and men are more than And dew-drops on her lonely altars sprinkle

seeming;

Workings are they of the self-same powers Which the poet, in no idle dreaming,

Seeth in himself and in the flowers

Everywhere about us are they glowing-
Some, like stars, to tell us Spring is born;
Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing,
Stand, like Ruth, amid the golden corn.

Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing,

And in Summer's green-emblazoned field, But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing, In the centre of his brazen shield;

Not alone in meadows and green alleys,

On the mountain-top, and by the brink
Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,
Where the slaves of Nature stoop to drink;

Not alone in her vast dome of glory,

Not on graves of bird and beast alone, But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,

On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;

As a libation!

Ye matin worshippers! who bending lowly
Before the uprisen sun-God's lidless eye-
Throw from your chalices a sweet and holy
Incense on high!

Ye bright mosaics! that with storied beauty
The floor of Nature's temple tessellate,
What numerous emblems of instructive duty
Your forms create!

'Neath cloistered boughs, each floral bell that swingeth

And tolls its perfume on the passing air, Makes sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call to prayer.

Not to the domes where crumbling arch and
column

Attest the feebleness of mortal hand,
But to that fane, most catholic and solemn,
Which God hath planned;

NATURE AND THE POETS.

49

To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder,

Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply

Posthumous glories! angel-like collection! Upraised from seed or bulb interred in earth,

Its choir the winds and waves, its organ Ye are to me a type of resurrection,

Your voiceless lips, O Flowers, are living preachers,

Each cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book, Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers From loneliest nook.

Floral Apostles! that in dewy splendor
"Weep without woe, and blush without a
crime,"

O may I deeply learn, and ne'er surrender,
Your lore sublime!

"Thou wert not, Solomon! in all thy glory,
Arrayed," the lilies cry, "in robes like
ours;

How vain your grandeur! Ah, how transitory
Are human flowers!"

And second birth.

Were I, O God, in churchless lands remaining,

Far from all voice of teachers or divines, My soul would find, in flowers of thy ordaining,

Priests, sermons, shrines!

HORACE SMITH.

NATURE AND THE POETS.

I STOOD tiptoe upon a little hill,
The air was cooling, and so very still,
That the sweet buds, which with a modest
pride

Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,
Their scanty-leaved and finely-tapering stems,
Had not yet lost their starry diadems
Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.
The clouds were pure and white as flocks
new-shorn,

And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly
they slept

On the blue fields of heaven, and then there
crept

In the sweet-scented pictures, Heavenly Art- A little noiseless noise among the leaves,
ist!
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves;
With which thou paintest Nature's wide- For not the faintest motion could be seen

spread hall,

What a delightful lesson thou impartest

Of love to all.

Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green.
There was wide wandering, for the greediest

eye

To peer about upon variety

Not useless are ye, Flowers! though made Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim, for pleasure: And trace the dwindled edgings of its brimBlooming o'er field and wave, by day and To picture out the quaint and curious bendnight,

ing

From every source your sanction bids me Of a fresh woodland alley never-ending

treasure

Harmless delight.

Ephemeral sages! what instructors hoary For such a world of thought could furnish scope?

Each fading calyx a memento mori,

Yet fount of hope.

Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves,
Guess where the jaunty streams refresh them-
selves.

I gazed awhile, and felt as light and free
As though the fanning wings of Mercury
Had played upon my heels: I was light-
hearted,

And many pleasures to my vision started;