Lift them! what marvelous beauty lies
Hidden beneath from our thoughtless eyes!
Mayflowers, rosy or purest white,

Lift their cups to the sudden light,

I

MORNING.

STOOD tiptoe upon a little hill;

The air was cooling and so very still,

That the sweet buds which with a modest pride
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,
Their scanty-leaved, and finely-tapering stems,
Had not yet lost their starry diadems.

Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.

The clouds were pure and white as flocks new-shorn,
And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept
On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept
A little noiseless noise among the leaves,
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves;
For not the faintest motion could be seen
Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green.

A bush of May-flowers with the bees about them; Ah, sure no tasteful nook could be without them;

And let a lush laburnum oversweep them,

And let long grass grow round the roots, to keep them Moist, cool, and green; and shade the violets,

That they may bind the moss in leafy nets.

- John Keats.

TH

THE THREE FLOWERS.

HERE bloom three young flowers so sweet and fair,

In Nature's wild, flourishing garden,

On mountains and hillsides, in forests and vales,
As if playing watcher and warden;

Your beauties, sweet flowers, are rich and divine;
They bloom in the field; in the nosegay they shine.

The buttercup, first, all spring-time so bright,
Like glittering beads strung in order;

Its blossoms like dewdrops, the daughters of night,
Gem the fields, and the green roadsides border;
Wherever its clear yellow flowers you see,
Its honey-cup swells with the food of the bee.

The violet, next, in its liveliest blue,

In green, clasping leaflets half-covered,

The spring meadow fills with its fragrant perfume, Where the redbreast, by morning light, hovered; The image of mildness and modesty, too,

Is the violet-flower, of heavenly hue.

And then, where the sparkling fountain gleams,
Beneath the noon sunlight so splendid,
The flower-de-luce, with its triple bell, smiles,
Till the days of the springtime are ended;

'Tis sacred to friendship and sacred to love, The emblem of union in heaven above.

- Samuel Francis Smith.

From "Poems of Home and Country."

THE DAISY IN INDIA.

ΤΗΝ

HRICE welcome, little English flower!
My mother-country's white and red,

In rose or lily, till this hour,

Never to me such beauty spread ;
Transplanted from thine island-bed,
A treasure in a grain of earth,
Strange as a spirit from the dead,
Thine embryo sprang to birth.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
Whose tribes, beneath our natal skies,
Shut close their leaves while vapors lower,
But, when the sun's gay beams arise,
With unabash'd but modest eyes,
Follow his motion to the west,

Nor cease to gaze till daylight dies,
Then fold themselves to rest.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
To this resplendent hemisphere,
Where Flora's giant offspring tower
In gorgeous liveries all the year;
Thou, only thou, art little here,
Like worth unfriended and unknown;
Yet to my British heart more dear
Than all the Torrid Zone,

:

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
Of early scenes beloved by me,
While happy in my father's bower,
Thou shalt the blithe memorial be;

The fairy sports of infancy,

Youth's golden age, and manhood's prime,

Home, country, kindred, friends, — with thee,
I find in this far clime.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
I'll rear thee with a trembling hand;
Oh, for the April sun and shower,
The sweet May dews of that fair land,
Where daisies, thick as starlight, stand
In every walk! — that here may shoot
Thy scions, and thy buds expand,
A hundred from one root.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
To me the pledge of hope unseen:
When sorrow would my soul o'erpower,
For joys that were, or might have been,
I'll call to mind, how, fresh and green,
I saw thee waking from the dust;
Then turn to heaven with brow serene,
And place in God my trust.

-James Montgomery.

THE SENSITIVE PLANT.

SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew,

And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it open'd its fan-like leaves to the light,

And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

And the Spring arose on the garden fair;
Like the Spirit of Love fell everywhere;

And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss

In the garden, the field, or the wilderness,

Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want, As the companionless Sensitive Plant.

The snowdrop, and then the violet,

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,
And their breath was mix'd with fresh odors sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.

Then the pied windflowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness;

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,

Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale,
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odor within the sense;

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest, Which unveil'd the depth of her glowing breast, Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air

The soul of her beauty and love lay bare;