FOLIAGE.

Towards yonder cloud-land in the west,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts

Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds, and waft through all the rooms

The snow-flakes of the cherry blooms!
Blow, winds, and bend within my reach.
The fiery blossoms of the peach!

O Life and Love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!

O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free!

113

FOLIAGE.

COME forth, and let us through our hearts receive

The joy of verdure! See the honeyed lime

Showers cool green light o'er banks where wild flowers weave

1

Thick tapestry, and woodbine tendrils climb

Up the brown oak from beds of moss and thyme.

The rich deep masses of the sycamore

Hang heavy with the fulness of their prime;

And the white poplar from its foliage hoar

Scatters forth gleams like moonlight, with each gale

That sweeps the boughs: the chesnut flowers are past,

The crowning glories of the hawthorn fail,

But arches of sweet eglantine are cast

From every hedge. Oh, never may we lose,

Dear friend! our fresh delight in simplest Nature's hues!

Q

Therefore with thy sweet breath came floating by

A thousand images of love and grief,

Dreams filled with tokens of mortality,

Deep thoughts of all things beautiful and brief.

Not such thy spells o'er those that hailed thee first In the clear light of Eden's golden day! There thy rich leaves to crimson glory burst, Linked with no dim remembrance of decay.

Rose! for the banquet gathered, and the bier; Rose! coloured now by human hope or pain: Surely where death is not, nor change nor fear,

Yet may we meet thee, joy's own flower, again!

1

THE LILY.

115

THE LILY.

"And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly."-1 Cor. xv. 49.

How withered, perished seems the form

Of yon obscure, unsightly root !

Yet from the blight of wintry storm
It hides secure the precious fruit.

The careless eye can find no grace,
No beauty in its scaly folds,
Nor see within the dark embrace
What latent loveliness it holds.

Yet in that bulb, those sapless scales,
The lily wraps her silver vest,

Till vernal suns and vernal gales

Shall kiss once more her fragrant breast.

Oh! many a stormy night shall close
In gloom upon the barren earth,
While still, in undisturbed repose,
Uninjured lies the future birth ;

And Ignorance with sceptic eye,

Hope's patient smile shall wondering view;

Or mock her fond credulity,

As her soft tears the spot bedew.

Sweet smile of hope, delicious tear!
The sun, the shower indeed shall come,
The promised verdant shoot appear,

And Nature bid her blossoms bloom.

And thou, O Virgin Queen of Spring!
Shalt, from thy dark and lowly bed,
Bursting thy green sheath's silken string,
Unveil thy charms, and perfume shed;

Unfold thy robes of purest white

Unsullied from their darksome grave,

And thy soft petals' silvery light

In the mild breeze unfettered wave.

THE BUTTERFLY.

CHILD of the Sun! pursue thy rapturous flight,
Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light;
And where the flowers of Paradise unfold,
Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold.
There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky,
Expand and shut with silent ecstasy!—

Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept

On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept!

And such is Man: soon from his cell of clay

To burst a Seraph in the blaze of day!

HYMN FOR JUNE.

117

HYMN FOR JUNE.

"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."

-1 John iv. 8.

WHY comes this fragrance on the Summer breeze,
The blended tribute of ten thousand flowers,

To me, a frequent wanderer 'mid the trees

That form these gay, though solitary bowers!
One answer is around, beneath, above;
The echo of the voice, that God is Love!

Why bursts such melody from tree and bush,
The overflowing of each songster's heart,
So filling mine, that it can scarcely hush

Awhile to listen, but would take its part?
'Tis but one song I hear where'er I rove,
Though countless be the notes, that God is Love!

Why leaps the streamlet down the mountain's side,
Hastening so swiftly to the vale beneath,
To cheer the shepherd's thirsty flock, or glide
Where the hot sun has left a faded wreath;
Or, rippling, aid the music of the grove?
Its own glad voice replies, that God is Love!

In starry heavens, at the midnight hour,

In ever-varying hues at morning's dawn,
In the fair bow athwart the falling shower,

In forest, river, lake, rock, hill, and lawn,
One truth is written: all conspire to prove,
What grace of old revealed, that God is Love!