FOLIAGE. Towards yonder cloud-land in the west, Its craggy summits white with drifts. Blow, winds, and waft through all the rooms The snow-flakes of the cherry blooms! O Life and Love! O happy throng O heart of man! canst thou not be 113 FOLIAGE. COME forth, and let us through our hearts receive The joy of verdure! See the honeyed lime Showers cool green light o'er banks where wild flowers weave 1 Thick tapestry, and woodbine tendrils climb Up the brown oak from beds of moss and thyme. The rich deep masses of the sycamore Hang heavy with the fulness of their prime; And the white poplar from its foliage hoar Scatters forth gleams like moonlight, with each gale That sweeps the boughs: the chesnut flowers are past, The crowning glories of the hawthorn fail, But arches of sweet eglantine are cast From every hedge. Oh, never may we lose, Dear friend! our fresh delight in simplest Nature's hues! Q Therefore with thy sweet breath came floating by A thousand images of love and grief, Dreams filled with tokens of mortality, Deep thoughts of all things beautiful and brief. Not such thy spells o'er those that hailed thee first In the clear light of Eden's golden day! There thy rich leaves to crimson glory burst, Linked with no dim remembrance of decay. Rose! for the banquet gathered, and the bier; Rose! coloured now by human hope or pain: Surely where death is not, nor change nor fear, Yet may we meet thee, joy's own flower, again! 1 THE LILY. 115 THE LILY. "And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly."-1 Cor. xv. 49. How withered, perished seems the form Of yon obscure, unsightly root ! Yet from the blight of wintry storm The careless eye can find no grace, Yet in that bulb, those sapless scales, Till vernal suns and vernal gales Shall kiss once more her fragrant breast. Oh! many a stormy night shall close And Ignorance with sceptic eye, Hope's patient smile shall wondering view; Or mock her fond credulity, As her soft tears the spot bedew. Sweet smile of hope, delicious tear! And Nature bid her blossoms bloom. And thou, O Virgin Queen of Spring! Unfold thy robes of purest white Unsullied from their darksome grave, And thy soft petals' silvery light In the mild breeze unfettered wave. THE BUTTERFLY. CHILD of the Sun! pursue thy rapturous flight, Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept! And such is Man: soon from his cell of clay To burst a Seraph in the blaze of day! HYMN FOR JUNE. 117 HYMN FOR JUNE. "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." -1 John iv. 8. WHY comes this fragrance on the Summer breeze, To me, a frequent wanderer 'mid the trees That form these gay, though solitary bowers! Why bursts such melody from tree and bush, Awhile to listen, but would take its part? Why leaps the streamlet down the mountain's side, In starry heavens, at the midnight hour, In ever-varying hues at morning's dawn, In forest, river, lake, rock, hill, and lawn, |