THE FLOWER-DIAL.

MRS. HEMANS.

'T was a lovely thought to mark the hours,
As they floated in light away,

By the opening and the folding flowers,
That laugh to the summer's day.

Thus had each moment its own rich hue,

And its graceful cup and bell,

In whose colored vase might sleep the dew,

Like a pearl in an ocean shell.

To such sweet signs might the time have flowed,

In a golden current on,

Ere from the garden, man's first abode,

The glorious guests were gone.

Yet is not life, in its real flight,

Marked thus even thus - on earth, By the closing of one hope's delight, And another's gentle birth?

Oh! let us live, so that flower by flower,
Shutting in turn, may leave

A lingerer still for the sunset hour,
A charm for the shaded eve.

TO BLOSSOMS.

HERRICK.

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,

Why do ye fall so fast?

Your date is not so past

But you may stay here yet 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?

'T was pity nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

But ye 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.

THE VOICE OF SPRING.

MRS. HEMANS.

I come, I come! ye have called me long;
I come o'er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves, opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the south, and the chestnut flowers

By thousands have burst from the forest bowers;
And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes,
Are veiled with wreaths on Italian plains,
But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,

To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have passed o'er the hills of the stormy North, And the larch has hung all his tassels forth;

The fisher is out on the sunny sea,

And the rein-deer bounds o'er the pasture free,

And the pine has a fringe of softer green,

And the moss looks bright, where my foot hath

been.

From the streams and founts I have loosed the

chain<

They are sweeping on to the silvery main,

They are flashing down from the mountain brows, They are flinging spray o'er the forest-boughs, They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves, And the earth resounds with the joy of waves!

Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come!
Where the violets lie may be now your home.
Ye of the rose-lip and dew-bright eye,

And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly!
With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay,
Come forth to the sunshine, I may not stay.

Away from the dwellings of care-worn men,
The waters are sparkling in grove and glen,
Away from the chamber and sullen hearth,
The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth!
Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains,
And youth is abroad in my green domains.

But yeye are changed since ye met me last! There is something bright from your features

passed!

There is that comes over your brow and eye, Which speaks of a world where the flowers must

die!

Ye smile; but your smile hath a dimness yet

O, what have you looked on since last we met?

THE ANEMONE.

Adonis, a youth beloved by the goddess Venus, received a wound from a wild beast, while hunting, in consequence of which he died. The goddess of beauty, mourning his untimely death, transformed him to the Adonis or Anemone.

ANON.

Look, in the garden blooms the flos Adonis,
And memory keeps of him who rashly died,
Thereafter changed by Venus, weeping, to this

flower.

'And Beauty's Goddess bending o'er his bier, Breathed the soft sigh, and poured the tender tear.'

OVID.

His sunbeam-tinted tresses drooped unbound,
Sweeping the earth with negligence uncouth;
The white anemonies, that near him blew,
Felt his red blood, and red forever grew.

'Youth, like a thin anemone, displays His silken leaf, and in a morn decays.'

And coy anemone, that ne'er uncloses
His lips until they 're blown on by the wind.'