What delight in some sweet spot Combining love with garden plot, At once to cultivate one's flowers And one's epistolary powers!

Growing one's own choice words and fancies
In orange tubs, and beds of pansies;
One's sighs, and passionate declarations,
In odorous rhetoric of carnations;
Seeing how far one's stocks will reach,
Taking due care one's flowers of speech
To guard from blight as well as bathos,
And watering every day one's pathos !
A letter comes, just gathered. We
Dote on its tender brilliancy,
Inhale its delicate expressions
Of balm and pea, and its confessions
Made with as sweet a maiden's blush
As ever morn bedewed on bush :
("T is in reply to one of ours,
Made of the most convincing flowers.)

To paint that living light I see,
And fix the soul that sparkles there."
His prayer as soon as breathed was heard ;.
His pallet touched by Love grew warm,
And painting saw her thus transferred
From lifeless flowers to woman's form.
Still, as from tint to tint he stole,

The fair design shone out the more,
And there was now a life, a soul,

Where only colors glowed before. Then first carnation learned to speak,

And lilies into life were brought;
While mantling on the maiden's cheek,
Young roses kindled into thought:
Then hyacinths their darkest dyes
Upon the locks of beauty threw ;
And violets transformed to eyes,
Inshrined a soul within their blue.
CHORUS.

Blest be Love, to whom we owe
All that's bright and fair below;
Song was cold and painting dim,
Till song and painting learned from him.

THOMAS MOORE.

UP QUIT THY BOWER.

UP! quit thy bower! late wears the hour,
Long have the rooks cawed round the tower;
O'er flower and tree loud hums the bee,
And the wild kid sports merrily.
The sun is bright, the sky is clear;
Wake, lady, wake! and hasten here.

Up, maiden fair! and bind thy hair,
And rouse thee in the breezy air!
The lulling stream that soothed thy dream
Is dancing in the sunny beam.
Waste not these hours, so fresh, so gay:
Leave thy soft couch, and haste away!
Up! Time will tell the morning bell
Its service-sound has chiméd well;
The aged crone keeps house alone,
The reapers to the fields are gone.
Lose not these hours, so cool, so gay:

Lo! while thou sleep'st they haste away!

JOANNA BAILLIE.

I call thee, I await thee, and I love thee;

Many may worship thee, that will I not; If that thy spirit down to mine may move thee, Descend and share my lot!

Though I be formed of clay,

And thou of beams

More bright than those of day
On Eden's streams,

Thine immortality cannot repay
With love more warm than mine
My love. There is a ray

In me,

heart

which, though forbidden yet to shine, I feel was lighted at thy God's and thine. It may be hidden long: death and decay Our mother Eve bequeathed us, but my Defies it; though this life must pass away, Is that a cause for thee and me to part? Thou art immortal; so am I: I feel

I feel my immortality o'ersweep

All pains, all tears, all time, all fears, and peal,
Like the eternal thunders of the deep,
Into my ears this truth, "Thou liv'st forever!*

-

"Our rocks are rough, but smiling there
Th' acacia waves her yellow hair,
Lonely and sweet, nor loved the less
For flowering in a wilderness.

"Our sands are bare, but down their slope The silvery-footed antelope

As gracefully and gayly springs

As o'er the marble courts of kings.

"Then come, thy Arab maid will be
The loved and lone acacia-tree,
The antelope, whose feet shall bless
With their light sound thy loneliness.
"Oh

there are looks and tones that dart An instant sunshine through the heart, As if the soul that minute caught

Some treasure it through life had sought;

"As if the very lips and eyes
Predestined to have all our sighs,
And never be forgot again,
Sparkled and spoke before as then !

"So came thy every glance and tone,

When first on me they breathed and shone;
New, as if brought from other spheres,
Yet welcome as if loved for years!

"Then fly with me, if thou hast known
No other flame, nor falsely thrown
A gem away, that thou hadst sworn
Should ever in thy heart be worn.

"Come, if the love thou hast for me
Is pure and fresh as mine for thee,
Fresh as the fountain underground,
When first 't is by the lapwing found.

"But if for me thou dost forsake
Some other maid, and rudely break
Her worshipped image from its base,
To give to me the ruined place;

All night has the casement jessamine stirred
To the dancers dancing in tune,
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily, "There is but one
With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her alone?

She is weary of dance and play."
Now half to the setting moon are gone,
And half to the rising day;

Low on the sand and loud on the stone
The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose, "The brief night goes
In babble and revel and wine.

O young lord-lover, what sighs are those
For one that will never be thine?
But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose,
"For ever and ever mine !"

And the soul of the rose went into my blood,

As the music clashed in the hall; And long by the garden lake I stood,

For I heard your rivulet fall

And the best of all ways

To lengthen our days

Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet

That whenever a March-wind sighs,

He sets the jewel-print of your feet

In violets blue as your eyes,

To the woody hollows in which we meet,
And the valleys of Paradise.

The slender acacia would not shake

One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,

As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;

But the rose was awake all night for your sake, Knowing your promise to me;

The lilies and roses were all awake,

They sighed for the dawn and thee.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither! the dances are done;
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun.

There has fallen a splendid tear

From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear;

She is coming, my life, my fate!

The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near And the white rose weeps, "She is late"; The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear";

And the lily whispers, "I wait."

She is coming, my own, my sweet!

Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthly bed; My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

THE YOUNG MAY MOON.

THE young May moon is beaming, love,
The glowworm's lamp is gleaming, love,
How sweet to rove

Through Morna's grove,
While the drowsy world is dreaming, love!
Then awake!-the heavens look bright, my dear! |
'Tis never too late for delight, my dear!

But the sage, his star-watch keeping, love, And I, whose star,