MAY GARLANDS.

OME, ye little revellers gay,
Learners in the school of May,
Bring me here the richest crown
Wreathed this morn on breezy down,
Or in nook of copsewood green,
Or by river's rushy screen,

Or in sunny meadow wide,

Gemmed with cowslips in their pride;
Or perchance, high prized o'er all,
From beneath the southern wall,
From the choicest garden bed,
'Mid bright smiles of infants bred,
Each a lily of his own
Offering, or a rose half-blown.

Bring me now a crown as gay,
Wreathed and woven yesterday.
Where are now those forms so fair?
Withered, drooping, wan, and bare,

Feeling nought of earth or sky,

Shower or dew, behold they lie,

Vernal airs no more to know:-
They are gone-and ye must go,
Go where all that ever bloomed,
In its hour must lie entombed.-
They are gone; their light is o'er :—
Ye must go; but ye once more
Hope in joy to be new-born,
Lovelier than May's gleaming morn.

Hearken, children of the May,

Now in your glad hour and gay,
Ye whom all good angels greet

With their treasures blithe and sweet :-
None of all the wreaths ye prize

But was nursed by weeping skies.
Keen March winds, soft April showers,

Braced the roots, embalmed the flowers.

So, if e'er that second spring

Her green robe o'er you shall fling,
Stern self-mastery, tearful prayer,

Must the way of bliss prepare.

How should else Earth's flowerets prove

Meet for those pure crowns above?

Lyra Innocentium.

Seek thou the well-known glade,
Where heavy with sweet dew, the violets lie,
Gleaming through moss-tufts deep,
Like dark eyes filled with sleep,
And bathed in hues of summer's midnight sky.

Bring me their buds, to shed

Around my dying bed

A breath of May, and of the woods' repose;
For I in sooth depart

With a reluctant heart,

That fain would linger where the bright sun glows.

Fain would I stay with thee

Alas! this may not be;

Yet bring me still the gifts of happier hours;

Go where the fountain's breast

Catches, in glassy rest,

The dim green light that pours through laurel bowers.

I know how softly bright,
Steeped in that tender light,

The water-lilies tremble there, e'en now;

Go to the pure stream's edge,

And from its whispering sedge

Bring me those flowers to cool my fevered brow.

Then, as in hope's young days,

Track thou the antique maze
Of the rich garden, to its grassy mound;
There is a lone white rose,

Shedding, in sudden snows,

Its faint leaves o'er the emerald turf around:

Well know'st thou that fair tree

A murmur of the bee

Dwells ever in the honey'd lime above:
Bring me one pearly flower

Of all its clustering shower-
For on that spot we first revealed our love.

Gather one woodbine bough,

Then from the lattice low

Of the bowered cottage which I bade thee mark,
When by the hamlet last,

Through dim wood-lanes we pass'd,

While dews were glancing to the glow-worm's spark:

The Last Wish.

Haste! to my pillow bear

Those fragrant things and fair,

Thy hand no more may bind them up at eve→→→
Yet shall their odour soft

One bright dream round me waft

Of life, youth, summer-all that I must leave:

And oh! if thou wouldst ask

Wherefore thy steps I task,

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The grove, the stream, the hamlet vale to trace'Tis that some thought of me,

When I am gone, may be

The spirit bound to each familiar place.

I bid mine image dwell

(Oh! break not thou the spell!) In the deep wood and by the fountain side; Thou must not, my beloved!

Rove where we two have roved,

Forgetting her that in her spring-time died!

HEMANS.