THE FLOWER-GIRL'S SONG. TENDER flowers! tender flowers! Fresh, and dripping wet! Tears of morning's earliest showers On their faces yet, Bursting bud, and fuller blossom, Tender flowers for lady's bosom ! Roses for a maiden's brow, Red, and ripe, and sweet, There they'll almost seem to blow Maiden, buy my dripping roses, Bright as those your cheek discloses. Here are lilies of the valley, Sweetest odour! they were grown In a dark and leafy alley, I discovered it alone; Ladies! if it be your pleasure, This can never be resisted, Ladies! only look at this, Here are links of Fusia twisted With the mournful Clematis ; Grief with beauty is contending In these two flowers' lovely blending. All the choicest country flowers In this bunch I've tied, Woodbine from the cottage bowers, Harebells from the side Of hills, and heath from off the mountains, Bound with moss from brink of fountains. Ladies, you will not forget The flower all children love, The gentle blue-eyed Violet! Come buy this, bunch, and prove That you, at least, in all your sadness, Have not forgot your hours of gladness. And for those that daintier are, Nosegays I have not forgot, Look into my basket, where White Camellias 1 have got; Ladies! what can match the brightness Of that fair flower's perfect whiteness. Tender flowers! tender flowers! Fresh, and dripping wet! Tears of morning's earliest showers On their faces yet; Bursting bud, and fuller blossom, Tender flowers for lady's bosom! THE EXILE'S SONG. OH! dream of my youth in its innocent hours, And play round my bosom as once mid' the flowers, of this. Sweet scenes of my childhood, dear hills of my home, Could I see you once more with the same tearless eyes, You might chance teach the wanderer no further to roam, But again be your child with the breast free from sighs. Do you still breathe your mornings as fresh to the sense? Are your evenings as beauteous, and sung to re pose By the birds of the spring? Are your wood-paths as dense With the flowers of the forest, and scented wild rose? As calm flows your river; the white sail is seen Like a bird of the heavens on its journey of light; Your shores are as wild and your pastures as green As in days when I sought them with musing de light. Your year speeds as lovely, your seasons as fair, As the far fabled gardens that bloom'd in the west; But where are the hearts that admir'd them? ah, where Is the voice to commend what was loveliest and best? |