FLOWERS.

MRS. BARBAULD.

Flowers to the fair! to you these flowers I bring, And strive to greet you with an early spring; Flowers, sweet and gay, and delicate like you, Emblems of innocence and beauty too.

With flowers the Graces bind their yellow hair, And flowery wreaths consenting lovers wear. Flowers, the sole luxury which Nature knew, In Eden's pure and guiltless garden grew.

ANON.

No marvel woman should love flowers: they bear
So much of fanciful similitude

To her own history; like herself repaying
With such sweet interest all the cherishing
That calls their beauty or their sweetness forth;
And like her, too, dying beneath neglect.

Flowers are the alphabet of angels - whereby They write on hills and fields mysterious truths.

Flowers, too, are stars of earth, the
Joy of every shrub that bears them.

THE ROSE.

REV. ROBERT CAUNTER.

How beautiful the rose, as it unfolds its vernal

dyes,

And breathes a holy fragrance round, like incense from the skies;

Cast to the breeze the sparkling dews that glitter on its stem,

And wreaths around its blushing brows a crystal diadem.

But while the bee with honeyed lip salutes the vernal flower,

That 's daily brightened by the sun, and cherished by the shower,

The blast of desolation comes and sweeps it to the

dust,

When all its beauties perish, as all mortal beauties must.

Behold that gentle maiden, in the fair fresh morn

of youth,

Upon her cheek the holy glow of innocence and truth;

The sudden shock of sorrow strikes - the blush no

longer glows,

But verifies the fate of her fragile type, the ross

Destruction comes alike to all, the meanest av! the best,

"T is oft the harbinger of woe, as suffering is to

rest;

Here beauty is the sure but smiling herald of

decay,

As oftentimes the darkest night succeeds the brightest day.

To a White Chrysanthemum.

MRS. DENNIES.

Fair gift of friendship! and her ever bright
And faultless image! welcome now thou art,
In thy pure loveliness, thy robes of white,

Speaking a moral to the feeling heart;

Unscathed by heats - by wintry blasts unmoved,Thy strength thus tested, and thy charm improved.

Emblem of innocence, which fearless braves

Life's dreariest scenes, its rudest storm derides, And floats calmly on o'er troubled waves,

As where the peaceful streamlet smoothly glides; Thou 'rt blooming now, as beautiful and clear As other blossoms do when spring is here.

Symbol of hope, still banishing the gloom

Hung o'er the mind by stern December's reign! Thou cheer'st the fancy by the steady bloom, With thoughts of summer and the fertile plain; Calling a thousand visions into play,

Of beauty redolent, and bright as May.

THE ACANTHUS.

The Acanthus is a native of Italy, and was introduced into England nearly three hundred years ago. It blossoms in July, and continues to put forth its blue flowers until the Autumn.

If any thing obstructs its ready growth it will strive to overcome and vegetate with increased vigor. An elegant English work, The Sentimenta of Flowers,' gives the following beautiful anecdote.

The architect, Callimach, passing near the tomb of a young maiden who had died a few days before the time appointed for her nuptials, moved by tenderness and pity, approached to scatter some flowers on her tomb. Another tribute to her memory had preceded his. Her nurse had collected the flowers which should have decked her on her wedding day; and, putting them with the marriage veil, in a little basket, had placed it near the grave upon a plant of acanthus, and then covered it with a tile. In the succeeding spring, the leaves of the acanthus grew round the basket: but, being stayed in their growth by the projecting tile, they recoiled and surmounted its extremities. Callimach, surprised by this rural decoration, which seemed the work of the Graces in tears, conceived the capital of the Corinthian column; a magnificent ornament, still used and admired by the whole civilized world.

MILTON.

She died as fair ones

Often die, when bridal flowers

Spring around their pathway but to

Deck the r graves. Genius, stooping o'er

Her silent resting-place, learned of

Italy's Acanthus, the arts

Which Corinth claims.

THE MOSS ROSE.

Milton concurs with the sentiment, pleasure without alloy,' when he terms the elegant MOSS-ROSE without thorn the rose."

An anonymous writer thus sweetly sings in preference:

O, I love the sweet-blooming, the pretty moss-rose, 'T is the type of true pleasure, and perfected joy; O, I envy each insect that dares to repose 'Midst its leaves, or among its soft beauties to toy.

I love the sweet lily, so pure and so pale,
With a bosom as fair as the new fallen snows;
Her luxuriant odors she spreads through the vale,
Yet e'en she must yield to my pretty moss-rose.

O, I love the gay heart's-case, and violet blue,
The sun-flower and blue-bell, each flowret that
blows;

The fir tree, the pine tree, acacia, and yew,
Yet e'en these must yield to my pretty moss-rose.

Yes, I love my moss-rose, for it ne'er had a thorn, "T is the type of life's pleasures, unmixed with its woes!

"T is more gay, and more bright, than the opening

morn

Yes, all things must yield to my pretty moss-rose.