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THE IVY.

BARTON.

Hast thou seen, in winter's stormiest day,
The trunk of a blighted oak,

Not dead, but sinking in slow decay
Beneath time's resistless stroke,

Round which a luxuriant ivy had grown,

And wreathed it with verdure no longer its own.

Perchance thou hast seen this sight; and then, As I at thy years might do,

Passed carelessly by, nor turned again

That scathéd wreck to view.

But now I can draw from that mouldering tree, Thoughts which are soothing and dear to me.

O, smile not! nor think it a worthless thing,
If it be with instruction fraught;
That which will closest and longest cling
Is alone worth a serious thought!

Should aught be unlovely which thus can shed
Grace on the dying, and leaves on the dead?

-Catch the neighbor shrub

With clasping tendrils, and invest his branch,
Else unadorned, with many a gay festoon
And fragrant chaplet, recompensing well
The strength they borrow with the grace they lend.

COWPER.

THE BROKEN FLOWER.

MRS. HEMANS.

O, wear it on thy heart, my love!
Still, still a little while!

Sweetness is lingering in its leaves,
Though faded be their smile.

Yet, for the sake of what hath been,
O, cast it not away!

'T was born to grace a summer scene,
A long, bright, golden day.

A little while around thee, love!
Its fragrance yet shall cling,
Telling that on thy heart hath lain.

A fair, though faded thing.

But not even that warm heart hath power
To win it back from fate: -

O, I am like thy broken flower,
Cherished too late, too late.

Ye are the stars of earth, - and dear to me

Is each small twinkling gem, that wanders free, 'Mid glade or woodland, or by murmuring stream.

MISS TWAMLEY.

THE PASSION FLOWER.

A tear, unbidden, starts when we view this emblem of religious fervor, for though we follow not the superstitious, yet we feel a sympathy in tracing in it the mysterious emblem of the Saviour's passion.

ANON.

All beauteous flower! whose centre glows
With studs of gold; thence streaming flows
Ray-like effulgence; next is seen

A rich expanse of varying hue,
Enfringed with an empurpled blue,

And streaked with young Pomona's green.

High o'er the pointal, decked with gold, (Emblem mysterious to behold!)

A radiant cross its form expands; Its opening arms appear to embrace The whole collective human race, Refuse of all men, in all lands.

Imperial passion flower!

Whatever impulse first conferred that name,
Or fancy's dream, or superstition's art,

I freely own its spirit-touching claim,

With thoughts and feelings it may well impart.

BARTON.

THE QUEEN OF THE GARDEN.

MOORE.

If Jove would give the leafy bowers
A queen for all their world of flowers,
The rose would be the choice of Jove,
And reign the queen of every grove.
Sweetest child of weeping morning,
Gem, the rest of earth adorning,
Eye of flow'rets, glow of lawns,
Bud of beauty, nursed by dawns;
Soft the soul of love it breathes;
Cypria's brow with magic wreathes;
And to the zephyrs warm caresses
Diffuses all its verdant tresses,

Till, glowing with the wanton's play,
It blushes a diviner ray

Of all flowers,

Methinks a rose is best. * * *

It is the very emblem of a maid;

For when the west wind courts her gently,

How modestly she blows, and paints the sun

With her chaste blushes! When the north comes

near her,

Rude and impatient, then, like chastity,

She locks her beauties in her bud again,

And leaves him to base briers.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

THE LAST WISH.

MRS. HEMANS.

'Well may I weep to leave this world-theeall these beautiful woods, and plains, and hills.'

Go to the forest shade

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 wood's repose;
For I in sooth depart

With a reluctant heart,

That fain would linger where the bright sun glows.

Well know'st thou that fair tree

A murmur of the bee

Dwells ever in the honeyed lime above;

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Of all its clustering shower

For on that spot we first revealed our love.

Gather one woodbine bough,

Then, from the lattice low

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