CHANGE. MISS L. E. LANDON. Where are the flowers, the beautiful flowers, That haunted your homes and your hearts in the spring? Where is the sunshine of earlier hours? Where is the music the birds used to bring? Where are the flowers?-why, thousands are springing, And many fair strangers are sweet on the air; And the birds to the sunshine their welcome are singing Look round on our valley, and then question Where? Alas! my heart's darkness! I own it is summer, Though little 't is like what it once used to be: I have no welcome to give the new comer; Strangely the summer seems altered to me. "T is my spirits are wasted-my hopes that are weary; These made the gladness and beauty of yore: To the worn and the withered even sunshine is dreary; And the year has its spring, though our own is no more. How often in our path Crossed by some being, whose bright spirit sheds A passing gladness o'er it: but whose course Leads down another current, never more To blend with ours: yet far within our souls, Dwells many a secret thought, which lingers still Around that image!' GRASS. Surely nothing in the vegetable kingdom grows more profusely, and eventually proves more beneficial, than the grass of the field, which,' to-day is, and to-morrow is cut down.' God has given it a conspicuity among the works of his hands, which came from chaos at his 'creating nod.' After the light was divided from the darkness,' the heavens and the earth were formed; Omnipotence, as if anticipating the necessities of the creatures he should soon create to inhabit the earth, said, let the earth bring forth grass.' David tells us, that 'He causeth grass to grow for the cattle.' In holy writ man's fleeting days are compared to grass, -the wind passeth over it and it is gone.' Peter, in his first general epistle, tells us, that all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.' Isaiah, when comforting the people of Jerusalem, concerning the coming of him who should cry in the wilderness," presents, as encouragement to trist in God, a comparison between the stability of God's word and 'All flesh is the instability of frail, passing man. grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; out the word of our God shall stand forever.' MILTON. Let the earth Put forth the verdant grass, herb, yielding seed, He scarce had said, when the bare earth, till then Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad THE ROSE. D. EVERETT ROSE. Loved daughter of the laughing May! The light of all that 's pure is thine; The rosy beams that wake the day, Upon thy cheeks of velvet shine. Thy beauty paints the evening skies, It mingles with the rainbow's dyes, In love's own light its blushes speak On ruby lip and vermeil cheek. No wooing zephyrs ever strayed The sparklet of the nectar dew; And on their shrine the pearls have slept, Like tears the dying stars have wept. Many a pouting lip has flushed In rival beauty by thy side; The lily claim the snow its own; But still thou reign'st undimmed alone. Thou hast the tale of love expressed, Ah! anxious hope long watch has kept, Despairingly beneath thy cover; While fond heart sighed and bright eye wept The absence of a faithless lover. And many a vow of love is made, And fond heart pledged beneath thy shade; While friendly moonbeams light thy bower, And glide too soon the stolen hour. I love thee, emblem of my youth! |