THE NIGHT-BLOWING CEREUS.
See to life her beauties start,
Hail! thou glorious, matchless flower!
Much thou sayest to the heart,
In the solemn fleeting hour.
Ere we have our homage paid,
Thou wilt bow thine head and die;
Thus our sweetest pleasures fade,
Thus our brightest blessings fly.
Sorrow's rugged stem, like thine,
Bears a flower thus purely bright;
Thus, when sunny hours decline,
Friendship sheds her cheering light.
Religion, too, that heavenly flower,
That joy of never-fading worth,
Waits, like thee, the darkest hour,
And then puts all her glories forth.
Then thy beauties are surpassed,
Splendid flower, that bloom'st to die;
For Friendship and Religion last,
When the morning beams on high.
THE NIGHT-BLOWING CEREUS.
CAN it be true? so fragrant and so fair,
To give thy perfume to the dews of night?
Can aught so beautiful shrink from the glare,
And fade and sicken in the coming light?
Yes, peerless flower! the heavens alone exhale
Thy fragrance; while the glittering stars attest,
And incense, wafted from the midnight gale,
Untainted rises from thy spotless breast.
Sweet emblem of that faith, which seeks, apart
From human praise, to love and work unseen;
That gives to heaven an undivided heart-
In sorrow steadfast, and in joy serene!
Anchored on God, no adverse cloud can dim;
Her eye, unaltered, still is fixed on Him!
THERE is a flower whose modest eye
Is turned with looks of light and love,
Who breathes her softest, sweetest sigh,
Whene'er the sun is bright above.
Let clouds obscure, or darkness veil,
Her fond idolatry is fled,
Her sighs no more their sweets exhale,
The loving eye is cold and dead.
Canst thou not trace a moral here,
False flatterer of the prosperous hour?
Let but an adverse cloud appear,
And thou art faithless as the flower.
SONG OF THE GRASS.
HERE I come creeping, creeping everywhere;
By the dusty roadside,
On the sunny hill-side,
Close by the noisy brook,
In every shady nook,
I come, creeping, creeping everywhere.
In the noisy city street,
My pleasant face you'll meet,
Cheering the sick at heart,
Toiling his busy part,
Silently creeping, creeping everywhere.
You cannot see me coming,
Nor hear my low sweet humming;
For in the starry night,
And the glad morning light,
I come, quietly creeping everywhere.
When you're numbered with the dead In your still and narrow bed, In the happy spring I'll come, And deck your silent home, Creeping, silently creeping everywhere.
Still more alone! blithe Spring comes round,
Rich Summer-tide smiles by,
And golden Autumn paints the ground,
Till Winter's storm-blasts fly.
One after one, friends drop away,
As months on months roll on :
And hour by hour, and day by day,
The old are more alone.
Still more alone! alas! 'tis vain
New hopes, new hearts to find,
What magic can restore again
The visions of youth's mind?
Age walks amid an altered world,
"Mid bustling crowds unknown:
New scenes hath Novelty unfurled,
And left the old alone!
"Sere leaves that dangle from Life's tree,"
The old might well have said,
"A relic of the past are we;
A remnant of the dead;
Like emblems of forlorn decay
We linger till the last;
But death's long night shall turn to day,
When Time itself is past!"
That autumn leaf is sere and dead,
And soon will seek its wintry bed;
Yet many a lesson can supply
To fancy's ever watchful eye.
It once was green, and fair, and young,
Heaven's brightest beam was on it flung,
With many a friend that round it grew,
It danced in every breeze that blew.
But now old age has stolen on-
Its youthful beauty all is gone;
And now it dreads the zephyr's play,
Which only bears its friends away.
And, trembling on its parent stem,
It scarce can bear the dewy gem;
Its former strength and vigour past,
It meets each moment as its last!
The brightest sun may shed its ray,
The fairest moon upon it play,
The balmy air may pass it o'er,
But never can its life restore.
Its lot was this-to bloom awhile,
And give to Nature's face one smile;
The voice of Heaven in autumn calls,
Its part is done!-and see, it falls.
'Tis thus with man-youth yields to age,
And sad reflection fills the page
Of former times and hopes now fled,—
Of early friends, and vigour dead.
Thus, like the leaf, he dwindles on,
But he is cheered for what is gone;
For when he seeks his wintry bed,
'Tis but the body that is dead.
HAIL, and farewell, thou lovely guest,
I may not woo thy stay,
The hues that paint thy blushing vest
Are fading fast away,
Like the returning tints that die
At evening from the western sky,
And melt in misty grey.
The morning sun thy beauties hailed,
Fresh from their mossy cell;
At eve his beam, in sorrow veiled,
Bade thee a sad farewell;
To-morrow's rays shall gild the spot
Where loosened from their fairy knot.
The withering petals fell.
Alas! on thy forsaken stem
My heart shall long recline,
And mourn the transitory gem,
And make the story mine:
So on my joyless wintry hour
Hath ope'd some bright and fragrant flower
With tints as soft as thine.
Like thee the vision came and went,
Like thee it bloomed and fell,
In momentary pity sent
Of fairer climes to tell.
So frail its form, so short its stay,
That nought the lingering heart could say,
But hail, and fare thee well!
THE HAWTHORN.
ON Summer's breast the hawthorn shines
In all the lily's bloom,
'Mid slopes where the evening flock reclines,
Where glows the golden broom.
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