THE FLOWER GIRL OF POMPEII.

BULWER.

Buy my flowers - O buy, I pray!

The blind girl comes from afar;

If the earth be as fair as I hear thein say,
These flowers her children are!

Do they her beauty keep?

They are fresh from her lap, I know;

For I caught them fast asleep

In her lap an hour ago,

With the air, which is her breath,

Over them murmuring low!

On their lips her sweet kiss lingers yet,
As their cheeks with tender tears are wet:
For she weeps - that gentle mother weeps,
As morn and night her watch she keeps
With a yearning heart and passionate care.
I see the young things grow so fair; -
She weeps for love she weeps

From the well of a mother's love!

Ye have a world of light,

Where love in the loved rejoices;

But the blind girl's home is the home of night

And its being are empty voices.

As one in the realm below,

I stand by the stream of woe;

I hear the vain shadows glide,

I feel their soft breath at my side, And I thirst the loved forms to see. And I stretch my fond arms around, And I catch but a shapeless sound, For the living are ghosts to me.

Come buy, come buy!

Hark! how the sweet things sigh! (For they have a voice like ours.)

The breath of the blind girl closes The leaves of the saddening roses. We are tender, we are sons of light, We shrink from this child of night: From the grasp of the blind girl free us

We yearn for the eye that sees us;

We are for night too gay,

In your eyes we behold the day,

O buy, O buy these flowers!'

TO THE WILD AMARANTH.

ANON.

The rose that gave its perfume to the gale,
And triumphed for an hour, in gay parade,
Pride of Damascus, bright imperial flower,
Was born to fade!

Shorn of its bloom, and rifled of its power,
Seared by the blast, and scattered in the vale!

So youth shall wither, beauty pass away!
The bloom of health, the flush of mantling pride,
Nor wealth, nor skill, nor eloquence can save
From swift decay!

Beauty and youth are dust to dust allied,
And time returns its tribute to the grave!

Fair emblem art thou of the spotless breast! Like thee, unfading flower, shall virtue bloom, When youth, with all its bustling pride, repose Deep in the tomb!

When beauty's cheek shall wither like the rose, And beauty's sparkling eye shall be at rest.

THE LILY.

MISS H. F. GOULD.

Imperial beauty! fair, unrivalled one!
What flower of earth has honor high as thire, -
To find its name on His unsullied lips,

Whose eye was light from heaven?

In vain the power

Of human voice to swell the strain of praise
Thou hast received; and which will ever sound
Long as the page of inspiration shines -
While mortal songs shall die as summer winds,
That, wafting off thine odors, sink to sleep!
I will not praise thee, then; but thou shalt be
My hallowed flower! The sweetest, purest
thoughts

Shall cluster round thee, as thy snowy bells

On the green polished stalk, that puts them forth!
I will consider thee, and melt my cares

In the bland accents of His soothing voice,
Who, from the hill of Palestine, looked round
For a specimen of skill divine;

And, pointing out the Lily of the field,
Declared, the wisest of all Israel's kings,
In his full glory, not arrayed like thee!

THE LAUREL.

The ancients consecrated the LAUREL-WREATH to glory. The crown of laurel alike adorned the brow of poet, orator, philosopher, and war rior. The beautiful Apollo consecrated the laurel to himself, and is represented with a crown of laurel leaves encircling his brow. He became enamored of Daphne, the virgin daughter of Peneus, of Thessaly; but she, rejecting his suit, fled from him. Apollo pursued her; and Daphne, invoking the assistance of her father, was transformed into a laurel

The god of beauty immediately gathered the leaves to adorn his brow, and the laurel became the reward of poesy. Those who attended the Roman games and Thebean festivals, celebrated in honor of Apollo, were crowned with laurels; and bore laurel branches in their processions. A branch of laurel placed near the entrance of a house signified sickness. The Cesars are often represented with crowns of laurel. The ill-fated Julius, however, was the first to be thus honored, and the laurel was worn till the time of Justinian, who changed it to the bonnet-crown.

In 1340, Plutarch received invitations from Rome and Paris to accept the laurel-wreath. In 1341, one of the Roman senators placed the crown of glory upon the poet's brow, saying, this crown is the meed of virtue." Tasso thus addresses a laurel which his lady wore in her hair:

O, glad, triumphal bough,

That now adornest conquering chiefs, and now
Clippest the brows of overruling kings;

From victory to victory

Thus climbing on, through all the heights of story,
From worth to worth, and glory unto glory;

To finish all, O gentle and glorious tree,
Thou reignest now upon the flourishing head,
At whose triumphant eyes, love and our souls are

led.