THE WHITE CLOVER.

MISS 8. SMITH.

There is a little perfumed flower,

Which well might grace the loveliest bower;
Yet poets never deigned to sing
Of such a humble, rustic thing:
Nor is it strange, for it can show
Scarcely one tint of Iris's bow.

Nature, perchance, in careless hour,
With pencil dry might paint the flower-
Yet instant blushed her fault to see,

And gave it double fragrancy.

Rich recompense for aught denied:
Who would not homely garb abide,
If gentlest soul were breathing there-
Blessing, through all their little sphere.
Sweet flower! the lesson thou hast taught
Shall check each proud, ambitious thought-
Teach me internal worth to prize,

Though found in lowliest, modest guise.

THE SUMMER FLOWER.

J. L. H.

Sweet summer flower, thou, too, must fade!

The soft refreshing dew,

That on thy breast has crystals made,

Must dry and vanish too.

The zephyrs soft that round thee play,
The showers that make thee bloom;
The sun, whose rays first made thee gay,
Must have with them a tomb.

Sweet summer flower - the lips that breathe
A sorrowing sigh on thee;

Or plucked to deck fair beauty's wreath,
All, all but wither thee:

Full many a flower by thee outgrown
Now casts thee in the shade,

And yet your case will be their own,
And they like thee must fade.

But ah, alas! how like our fate
Is thus a fading flower;

How many a weary, sick'ning state

Has followed pleasure's hour:
How oft the sun auspicious rose,
And we were happy blest,
And yet before the evening's close,
It saw an aching breast.

How oft, by innocence deceived,

The pure ingenuous mind,

Has some reward on earth conceived,

It's never doomed to find.

How oft does scandal's withering blast Congeal our pleasure's spring,

And though not long its hold can last, It still will leave a sting.

But if our pleasure like the flower,
At best must soon decay;

The breeze which blows a happy hour
The next may blow away: -

O, let the soul superior rise

To ev'ry human ill —

Just as the flower that, dying, sighs
Its lovely perfume still.

THE JASMINE.

This fragrant climber was introduced ir to England in 1548, and twelve years afterwards intc France, where it became a favorite on account of its slender branches and delicate fragrant flowers. It was first trained in the hot-house, but was found afterwards to flourish luxuriantly in the open air.

It grows in all its native loveliness at the south; but is cultivated with difficulty at the north.

We copy the following beautiful anecdote from The Sentiment of Flowers':

This beautiful plant grew in Hampton Court garden at the end of the seventeenth century; but, being lost there, was known only in Europe in the garden of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, at Pisa. From a jealous and selfish anxiety that he should continue to be the sole possessor of a plant so charming and so rare, he strictly charged his gardener not to give a single sprig, or even a flower, to any person. The gardener might have been faithful if he had not loved; but being attached to a fair, though portionless damsel, he presented her with a bouquet on her birthday; and, in order to render it more acceptable, ornamented it with a sprig of jasmine. The young maiden, to preserve the freshness of this pretty stranger, placed it in the earth, where it rema.ned green until the return

of spring, when it budded forth and was covered with flowers.

She had profited by her lover's lessons, and now cultivated her highly-prized jasmine with care, for which she was amply repaid by its rapid growth. 'The poverty of the lovers had been a bar to their union; now, however, she had amassed a little fortune by the sale of cuttings from the plant which love had given her, and bestowed it, with her hand, upon the gardener of her heart. The young girls of Tuscany, in remembrance of this adventure, always deck themselves, on their wedding-day, with a nosegay of jasinine; and they have a proverb, that she who is worthy to wear a nosegay of jasmine is as good as a fortune to her husband.'