ANEMONE. Anemone. LANGUAGE-FORSAKEN. ALAS! the love of women! it is known 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, Go, deceiver, go! Some day, perhaps, thou'lt waken 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, As the sunflower turns to her god, when she sets, MOORE. Within her heart was his image, Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last Only more beautiful made by his deathlike Silence and absence. ༡ LONGFELLOW'S EVANGELINE. ASPEN TREE. Populus Tremulus. LANGUAGE-EXCESSIVE SENSIBILITY. WHY tremble so, broad aspen tree? For when the air is still and clear, ΑΝΟΝ. Yet what is wit, and what the poet's art? Though time thy bloom is stealing, 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, It is not well amid thy race to move, MRS. WELBY. And pass them by as though they were but hinds. 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; Has oft set wits and heroes in a flame: 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! |