If I plucked thee for my brother-
To the war my brother's gone.

If I plucked thee for my lover-
Gone 's my lover far away!

Far away, o'er three green mountains,

Far away, o'er three cool fountains!

Translated by TALVI.

TO BLOSSOMS.

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?

Your date is not so past

But you may stay yet here awhile,
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.

What were ye born to be,

An hour or half's delight,

And so to bid good-night?
'Twas pity nature brought ye forth,
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne'er so brave;
And after they have shown their pride,

Like you awhile they glide,
Into the grave.

ROBERT HERRICK, 1591.

CHILDREN'S POSIES.

FROM "JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST."

The amusements and fancies of children, when connected with flowers, are always pleasing, being generally the conceptions of innocent minds unbiased by artifice or pretense; and their love of them seems to spring from a genuine feeling and admiration-a kind of sympathy with objects as fair as their own untainted minds; and I think it is early flowers which constitute their first natural playthings; though summer presents a greater number and variety, they are not so fondly selected. We have our daisies strung and wreathed about our dress; our coronals of orchises and primroses, our cowslip balls, etc.; and one

application of flowers at this season I have noticed, which, though perhaps it is local, yet it has a remarkably pretty effect, forming, for the time, one of the gayest little shrubs that can be seen. A small branch or long spray of the whitethorn, with all its spines uninjured, is selected; and on these, its alternate thorns, a white and blue violet, plucked from their stalks, are stuck upright in succession, until the thorns are covered, and when placed in a flower-pot of moss, it has perfectly the appearance of a beautiful vernal flowering dwarf shrub, and as long as it remains fresh is an object of surprise and delight.

J. L. KNAPP.

LOVE'S WREATH.

When Love was a child, and went idling round
Among flowers the whole summer's day,
One morn in the valley a bower he found,
So sweet, it allured him to stay.

O'erhead from the trees hung a garland fair,

A fountain ran darkly beneath;

'Twas Pleasure that hung the bright flowers up there,

Love knew it and jump'd at the wreath.

But Love did not know-and at his weak years,

What urchin was likely to know?—

That sorrow had made of her own salt tears,

That fountain which murmur'd below.

He caught at the wreath, but with too much haste,

As boys when impatient will do;

It fell in those waters of briny taste,

And the flowers were all wet through.

Yet this is the wreath he wears night and day;
And though it all sunny appears

With Pleasure's own luster, each leaf, they say,
Still tastes of the fountain of tears.

TO DAFFODILS.

Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet, the early-rising sun

Has not attain'd its noon.

THOMAS MOore.

I stood tiptoe upon a little hill;

The air was cooling, and so very still,

That the sweet buds which with a modest pride

Fell droopingly in slanting curve aside,

Their scanty-leaved and finely tapering stems

Had not yet lost their starry diadems,

Caught from the early sobbings 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

A little noiseless noise among the leaves,

Born of the very sigh that silence heaves;
For not the faintest motion could be seen

Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green.
There was wide wandering for the greediest eye.
To peer about upon variety;

Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim,
And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim;

To picture out the quaint and curious bending
Of a fresh woodland alley never-ending:

Or by the bowery clefts and leafy shelves,

Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves.

I gazed awhile, and felt as light and free

As though the fanning wings of Mercury

Had play'd upon my heels: I was light-hearted,

And many pleasures to my vision started;

So I straightway began to pluck a posy

Of luxuries bright, milky, soft, and rosy.

A bush of May-flowers with the bees about them;
Ah, sure no tasteful nook could be without them;

And let a lush laburnum oversweep them,

And let long grass grow round the roots, to keep them

Moist, cool, and green; and shade the violets,

That they may bind the moss in leafy nets.

A filbert-edge with wild-brier overtwined,
And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind
Upon their summer thrones; there too should be
The frequent checker of a youngling tree,

That with a score of bright-green brethren shoots
From the quaint mossiness of aged roots:

Round which is heard a spring head of clear waters.
Prattling so wildly of its lovely daughters,
The spreading blue-bells: it may haply mourn
That such fair clusters should be rudely torn

From their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly

By infant hands left on the path to die.

Open afresh your round of starry folds,

Ye ardent marigolds!

Dry up the moisture from your golden lids,

For great Apollo bids

That in these days your praises should be sung

On many harps, which he has lately strung;
And when again your dewiness he kisses,
Tell him, I have you in my world of blisses:
So haply when I rove in some far vale,
His mighty voice may come upon the gale.

Here are sweet-peas, on tiptoe for a flight,
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.
What next? a turf of evening primroses,
O'er which the mind may hover till it dozes;
O'er which it well might take a pleasant sleep,
But that 'tis ever startled by the leap

Of buds into ripe flowers.

147

JOHN KEATS.

TO THE SWEET-BRIER.

Our sweet autumnal western-scented wind
Robs of its odor none so sweet a flower,

In all the blooming waste it left behind,

As that sweet-brier yields it; and the shower
Wets not a rose that buds in beauty's bower

One half so lovely; yet it grows along

The poor girl's pathway; by the poor man's door.
Such are the simple folks it dwells among;

And humble as the bud, so humble be the song.

I love it, for it takes its untouch'd stand
Not in the vase that sculptors decorate;
Its sweetness all is of my native land;

And e'en its fragrant leaf has not its mate
Among the perfumes which the rich and great

Bring from the odors of the spicy East.

You love your flowers and plants, and will you hate
The little four-leaved rose that I love best,

That freshest will awake, and sweetest go to rest?

J. G. C. BRAINARD.