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ANEMONE.

Anemone.

LANGUAGE-FORSAKEN.

ALAS! the love of women! it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing;
For all of theirs upon that die is thrown,
And if 'tis lost, life has no more to bring
To them but mockeries of the past alone.

I did love once,

BYRON.

Loved as youth, woman, genius loves; though now My heart is chilled, and seared, and taught to wear That falsest of false things - a mask of smiles.

They parted as all lovers part

MISS LANDON.

She with her wronged and breaking heart; But he, rejoicing to be free,

Bounds like a captive from his chain,

And wilfully believing she

Hath found her liberty again;

Or if dark thoughts will cross his mind,
They are but clouds before the wind.

Go, deceiver, go!

Some day, perhaps, thou'lt waken
From pleasure's dream to know

The grief of hearts forsaken!

MISS LANDON.

MOORE.

LANGUAGE

ARBOR VITÆ.

Thuja.

UNCHANGING AFFECTION.

BELIEVE me, if all those endearing young charms, Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,

Were to change by to-morrow, and melt in my arms, Like fairy gifts fading away,

Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art, Let thy loveliness fade as it will,

And around the dear ruin each wish of

Would intwine itself verdantly still!

my

heart

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,

And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear,
That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear.
O, the heart which has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close

As the sunflower turns to her god, when she sets,
The same look which she turned when he rose.

MOORE.

Within her heart was his image,

Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last
She beheld him,

Only more beautiful made by his deathlike

Silence and absence.

LONGFELLOW'S EVANGELINE.

ASPEN TREE.

Populus Tremulus.

LANGUAGE-EXCESSIVE SENSIBILITY.

WHY tremble so, broad aspen tree?
Why shake thy leaves, ne'er ceasing?
At rest thou never seem'st to be,

For when the air is still and clear,
Or when the nipping gale, increasing,
Shades from thy boughs soft twilight's tear,
Thou tremblest still, broad aspen tree,
And never tranquil seem'st to be.

ΑΝΟΝ.

Yet what is wit, and what the poet's art?
Can genius shield the vulnerable heart?
Ah, no! Where bright imagination reigns,
The fine-wrought spirit feels acuter pains;
Where glow exalted sense, and taste refined,
There keener anguish rankles in the mind;
There feeling is diffused through every part,
Thrills in each nerve, and lives in all the heart;
And those whose generous souls each tear would keep
From other's eyes are born themselves to weep.

Though time thy bloom is stealing,
There's still beyond his art

The wild-flower wreath of feeling,

The sunbeam of the heart.

HANNAH MORE.

HALLECK.

AURICULA, SCARLET.

Primula Auricula.

LANGUAGE-PRIDE.

FROM her lone path she never turns aside,
Though passionate worshippers before her fall;
Like some pure planet, in her lonely pride,
She seems to soar and beam above them all.

It is not well amid thy race to move,
And shut thy heart to sympathy and love;
It is not well to scorn inferior minds,

MRS. WELBY.

And pass them by as though they were but hinds.
Pride may become thee, as the veil a nun;
But, ah! they love thee not whom thou dost shun;
And days may come to thee when human love
Thou wilt desire all earthly things above;
And thou wilt mourn that in thy days of pride

Thou didst not win some true hearts to thy side;

Wilt mourn that, now thy rank and wealth have flown, Thou'rt left to suffer and to die alone!

I'll offer and I'll suffer no abuse,

Because I'm proud: pride is of mighty use;
The affectation of a pompous name

Has oft set wits and heroes in a flame:
Volumes and buildings, and dominions wide,
Are oft the noble monuments of pride.

ANON.

CROWN'S CALIGULA.

MUSINGS ON FLOWERS.

FLOWERS, of all created things the most innocently simple, and most superbly complex; playthings for childhood, ornaments of the grave, and companions of the cold corpse!-flowers, beloved by the wandering idiot, and studied by the deep thinking man of science! - flowers, that, of perishing things, are the most heavenly!-flowers, that unceasingly expand to heaven their grateful, and to man their cheerful, looks; partners of human joy; soothers of human sorrow; fit emblems of the victor's triumphs, of the young bride's blushes; welcome to the crowded halls, and graceful upon solitary graves!-flowers are in the volume of nature what the expression "God is love" is in the volume of the revelation. What a desolate place would be a world without a flower! It would be a face without a smile a feast without a welcome. Are not flowers the stars of the earth, and are not our stars the flowers of heaven? One cannot look closely at the structure of a flower without loving it. They are emblems and manifestations of God's love to the creation, and they are the means and ministrations of man's love to his fellow-creatures; for they first awaken in his mind a sense of the beautiful and good. Their growth is always over their grave; the spot of their bloom is so quickly the sepulchre of their beauty!

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