ORIGIN OF THE THORNY RED ROSE.

LEGEND OF THE ROSE

Ah, lady! list my tale,
I was the summer's fairest pride,
The nightingale's betrothed bride;
In Shiraz's bowers I sprang to birth
When love first lighted on the earth;
And then my pure inodorous blossom,
Blooming on its thorny tree,

Was snowy as its mother's bosom,
Rising from the emerald sea.

Young love rambling through the wood,
Found me in my solitude;

Bright with dew and freshly blown,
And trembling to the zephyr's sighs.
But as he stood, to gaze upon
The living gem with raptured eyes,
It chanced a bee was busy there,
Searching for its fragrant fare;
And Cupid stooping, too, to sip,
The angry insect stung his lip-
And gushing from the ambrosial cell,
One bright drop on my bosom fell!
Weeping, to his mother he
Told the tale of treachery;
And she her vengeful boy to please,
Strung his bow with captive bees;

But placed upon my slender stem

The poisoned sting she plucked from them,
And none, since that eventful morn,
Have found the flower without a thorn.

AUTUMN.

NATHANIEL A. HAVEN.

Autumn! I love thy bower,
With faded garlands dressed;
How sweet, alone, to linger there,
When tempests drive the midnight air,
To snatch from mirth a fleeting hour,
The Sabbath of the breast.

Autumn! I love thee well,

Though bleak thy breezes blow;

I love to see the vapors rise,

And clouds roll wildly round the skies,

When from the plains the mountains swell,

And foaming torrents flow.

Autumn! thy fading flowers

Droop but to bloom again;

So man, though doomed to grief awhile,
To hang on fortune's fickle smile,

Shall glow in heaven with nobler powers,
Nor sigh for peace in vain.

Tell her that wastes her time on me,

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung

In deserts where no men abide,

Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired;
Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so to be admired.

Then die, that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee;

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair.

Yet, though thou fade,

From thy dead leaves let fragrance rise;

And teach the maid

That goodness time's rude hand defies;

That virtue lives when beauty dies.

To a Snowdrop appearing very early

in the Season.

WORDSWORTH.

Lone flowers, hemmed in with snows, and white

as they,

But hardier far, though modestly thou bend
Thy front and if such presence could offend!
Who guards thy slender stock while, day by day,
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, way-lay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend?
Accept the greeting that befits a friend,

Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquills, their odors lavishing
On the soft west wind and his frolic peers;

Yet will I not thy gentle grace forget,

Chaste snowdrop, vent'rous harbinger of spring, And pensive monitor of fleeting years.

First in bright Flora's train Galantha glows,
And prints with frolic step the melting snows:
Chides with her dulcet voice the tardy spring,
Bids slumbering Zephyr stretch his folded wing;
Wakes the house cuckoo in his gloomy cave,
And calls the wandering dormouse from his grave;
Bids the mute red-breast cheer the budding grove,
And plaintive ring-dove tune her notes to love.

DAUVIN.

FLOWERS LOVE'S TRUEST LANGUAGE.

PARK BENJAMIN

Flowers are love's truest language; they betray, Like the divining rods of Magi old,

Where priceless wealth lies buried, not of gold, But love, strong love, that never can decay. I send thee flowers, O dearest, and I deem

That from their petals thou wilt hear sweet words, Whose music, clearer than the voice of birds, When breathed to thee alone, perchance, may

seem

All eloquent of feelings unexpressed.

O, wreathe them in those tresses of dark hair,
Let them repose on thy forehead fair,

And on thy bosom's yielding snow be pressed; Thus shall thy fondness for my flowers reveal The love that maiden coyness would conceal.

THE DESERTED.

Lay a garland on my hearse,
Of the dismal yew;

Maidens, willow-branches bear,

Say I diéd true.

My love was false, but I was firm,

From my hour of birth;

Upon my buried body lie

Lightly, gentle earth.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.