Then, in the summer heat, Where lovers' vows are heard; And, holding in your arms the mossy nest, And when the morning's beam And dewdrops glitter'd your gay leaves among, Your kindly shelter would have been repaid By gentle voices in the greenwood shade, Caroll'd in warblings wild, or plaintive song. Alas! the winter's storm And even now ye die! Soon wither'd, dropping from the shrivell'd stem, Your early promise lost, each little gem Unwept, forgotten, on the earth must lie! So have I seen some early bud of youth So bright! so beautiful! Death might not come Such treasur'd bliss to mar! It might not come! Bid the wind cease to blow; Within the clouds remain: And when they hearken to the bidding, say E. P. BRING FLOWERS. BRING flowers, young flowers, for the festal board, Bring flowers! they are springing in wood and vale, Bring flowers to strew the conqueror's path,— Bring flowers, fresh flowers, for the bride to wear! Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young bride! For this through its leaves hath the white rose burst, Though they smile in vain for what once was ours. They are Love's last gift. Bring flowers, pale flowers! Bring flowers to the shrine where we kneel in prayer, THE ROSE. DEAR Flower of that bright and adored spot of earth, Where beauty, and grandeur, and glory have birth; Where the blossom ne'er fades, and the bloom never dies, But blossom and bloom on their ashes will rise; Where the blade in high verdure through winter is seen, And the leaf never fails in its eye-soothing green; Where the skies, though they weep, yet remain undefiled As the innocent soul of some unweaned child. And the tendrils that cling, and the blossoms that move, At heaven's balmy breath, seem all cradled in love. Even there thou art peerless, bright Flower! and doth shine To the eye and the heart like a something divine. Though the freshness of blossoms, drawn forth by the ray Of the soul-warming sun, may make balmy the day; Though the glory of sunlight may waken perfume From the depth of the lotus in fulness of bloom; And incense, let loose by the buzz of the bee, May rise up to heaven from each floret or tree; Expanding in love their soft forms to the sky, mind. O Beauty! thou lovely and terrible thing, Like the lightning so bright and so withering, Say, who hath not bent, with a trembling knee And a burning brow, like a slave, to thee? From each snow-bound pole to the burning zone, Thy altars are reared, and thy worship is known. We lift up our sorrowful eyes to heaven, With the furrow'd brow and bosom of pain, When the spirit is grieved and the heart wrung and riven, And all of this earth is accounted but vain. But the joys of youth's morn and its sunny things, And its newly fledged hopes and imaginings; And the soft virgin sighs that escape the breast, Ere that glorious temple lit up within By the Godhead's smile, hath been once oppress'd With the sorrows of earth, or the grief of sin: These, these, proud Beauty! are offered to thee, In the face of a glorious Deity. Fair emblem, then, of that power whose laws And a few short hours, and thou art gone. Alas! alas! frail Beauty, 'tis thine To feel the compunctionless spoiler's blow,To be laid for awhile on a glittering shrine, Then cast away,-e'en to wither so. Then vaunt thee no more in thy chamber, maid, Nor in eye-bright smiles thy dark tresses braid; |