Caught from the early sobbings 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.
There was wide wandering for the greediest eye,
To peer about upon variety;

Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim,
And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim;
To picture out the quaint and curious bending
Of a fresh woodland alley never-ending:
Or by the bowery clefts and leafy shelves,

Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves.
I gazed awhile, and felt as light and free

As though the fanning wings of Mercury
Had play'd upon my heels: was light-hearted,
And many pleasures to my vision started;
So I straightway began to pluck a posy

Of luxuries bright, milky, soft, and rosy.

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.

A filbert-edge with wild-brier overtwined,
And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind
Upon their summer thrones; there too should be
The frequent checker of a youngling tree,

That with a score of bright-green brethren shoots
From the quaint mossiness of aged roots:

Round which is heard a spring head of clear waters,
Prattling so wildly of its lovely daughters,
The spreading blue-bells: it may haply mourn
That such fair clusters should be rudely torn
From their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly

By infant hands left on the path to die.

Open afresh your round of starry folds,

Ye ardent marigolds!

Dry up the moisture from your golden lids,

For great Apollo bids

That in these days your praises should be sung

On many harps, which he has lately strung;
And when again your dewiness he kisses,
Tell him, I have you in my world of blisses:
So haply when I rove in some far vale,
His mighty voice may come upon the gale.

Here are sweet-peas, on tiptoe for a flight,
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.
What next? a turf of evening primroses,
O'er which the mind may hover till it dozes;
O'er which it well might take a pleasant sleep,
But that 'tis ever startled by the leap
Of buds into ripe flowers.

JOHN KEATS.

TO THE SWEET-BRIER.

Our sweet autumnal western-scented wind
Robs of its odor none so sweet a flower,

In all the blooming waste it left behind,
As that sweet-brier yields it; and the shower
Wets not a rose that buds in beauty's bower
One half so lovely; yet it grows along

The poor girl's pathway; by the poor man's door.
Such are the simple folks it dwells among;
And humble as the bud, so humble be the song.

I love it, for it takes its untouch'd stand
Not in the vase that sculptors decorate;
Its sweetness all is of my native land;

And e'en its fragrant leaf has not its mate

Among the perfumes which the rich and great

Bring from the odors of the spicy East.

You love your flowers and plants, and will you hate
The little four-leaved rose that I love best,

That freshest will awake, and sweetest go to rest?

J. G. C. BRainard.

THE WILD HONEYSUCKLE.

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouch'd thy honeyed blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet:

No roving foot shall crush thee here,
No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature's self in white array'd,
She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by;
Thus quietly thy summer goes,
Thy days declining to repose.

Smit with those charms that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died-nor were those flowers more gay
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;

Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came :
If nothing once, you nothing lose,

or when you die you are the same;
The space between is but an hour-
The frail duration of a flower.

PHILIP FRENEAU, 1752-1832.

WILD FLOWERS.

I dreamed that, as I wander'd by the way,
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,

And gentle odors led my steps astray,

Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,

But kiss'd it and then fled, as thou mightest in a dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,

Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cowbind and the moonlight-color❜d May,
And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day;
And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray,
And flowers azure, black, and streak'd with gold;
Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white, And starry river buds among the sedge,

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,

Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge

With moonlight beams of their own watery light;

And bulrushes and reeds of such deep green

As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

Methought that of these visionary flowers

I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprison'd children of the hours
Within my hand-and then, elate and gay,

I hasten'd to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it!-oh, to whom?

P. B. SHELLEY.

BEAU AND THE LILY.

"I must tell you a feat of my dog Beau. Walking by the river side, I observed some water-lilies floating at a little distance from the bank. They are a large white flower, with an orange-colored eye, very beautiful I had a desire to gather one, and, having your long cane in my hand, by the help of it endeavored to bring one of them within my reach. But the attempt proved vain, and I walked forward. Beau had all the while observed me very attentively. Returning soon after toward the same place, I observed him plunge into the river, while I was

about forty yards distant from him; and, when I had nearly reached the spot, he swam to land, with a lily in his mouth, which he came and laid at my feet." W. CowPER to Lady Hesketh, June 27th, 1788.

FLOWERS.

We are the sweet flowers,

Born of sunny showers,

(Think, whene'er you see us, what our beauty saith ;)
Utterance, mute and bright,

Of some unknown delight,

We fill the air with pleasure, by our simple breath :
All who see us love us-

We befit all places:

Unto sorrow we give smiles—and unto graces, races

Mark our ways, how noiseless

All, and sweetly voiceless,

Though the March-winds pipe, to make our passage clear;
Not a whisper tells

Where our small seed dwells,

Nor is known the moment green, when our tips appear.

We thread the earth in silence,

In silence build our bowers

And leaf by leaf in silence show, till we laugh a-top, sweet flowers.

The dear lumpish baby,

Humming with the May-bee,

Hails us with his bright star, stumbling through the grass;
The honey-dropping moon,

On a night in June,

Kisses our pale pathway leaves, that felt the bridegroom pass.

Age, the wither'd clinger,

On us mutely gazes,

And wraps the thought of his last bed in his childhood's daisies.

See (and scorn all duller

Taste) how heav'n loves color;

How great Nature, clearly, joys in red and green;

What sweet thoughts she thinks

Of violets and pinks,

And a thousand flushing hues, made solely to be seen:

See her whitest lilies

Chill the silver showers,

And what a red mouth is her rose, the woman of her flowers.