In summer weather Close nestling cheek to cheek, So modest, and so meek, Like loving hearts partaking all together; Flowers! how shrink ye From man's o'erweening ways! He, moth-like, seeks the blaze; Ye dwell retired in secret modesty ; Falsehood and change in him are still inherent- The open sky Is quick with living lights, It yields than those the greenwood can supply; In hour of pride, Not victor's burst of joy Can match, without alloy, The raptures that with nature's sons abide; These joys she gave me in a mood of love, And the world's bickering strife them never shall remove! At early morn, When yet your lips are wet With kisses given you when the stars are met, Long ere the hunter's loud awakening-horn Hath roused the laggard to the work of death, What joy to suck the honeyed fragrance of your breath! Serenely fair, Half-hidden by the grass, With virgin, bashful face, Blithe beauty dallying with your cheeks and hair, Ye peep Oreluctant from beneath the weeds, Like goodness blushing to make known her deeds. Wild flowers! I love right well To visit where ye dwell, On Scotia's hills, or vales, or shady bowers! But ye are rooted, grow, and blossom in my heart! D. CHRISTIE. THE DAISY. HERE is a flower, a little flower, With silver crest and golden eye, The prouder beauties of the field In gay but quick succession shine, Race after race their honours yield, They flourish and decline. But this small flower, to Nature dear, While moons and stars their courses run, Wreathes the whole circle of the year, Companion of the sun. It smiles upon the lap of May, To sultry August spreads its charms, The purple heath and golden broom, But this bold floweret climbs the hill, Within the garden's cultured round The lambkin crops its crimson gem, The wild bee murmurs on its breast, The blue fly bends its pensile stem Light o'er the skylark's nest. 'Tis Flora's page:-in every place, On waste and woodland, rock and plain, The Rose has but a summer reign, The Daisy never dies. MONTGOMERY. THE DAISY. N youth, from rock to rock I went, When soothed a while by milder airs, Whole Summer fields are thine by right; Be violets in their secret mews, Thou livest with less ambitious aim, If to a rock from rains he fly, And wearily at length should fare; A hundred times, by rock or bower, Some apprehension; Some steady love, some brief delight; If stately passions in me burn, And one chance look to thee should turn, I drink out of an humbler urn The homely sympathy that heeds Of hearts at leisure. When smitten by the morning ray, And when, at dusk, by dews oppressed Child of the year! that round dost run Thy long-lost praise* thou shalt regain ; As in old time;-thou not in vain, Art Nature's favourite. WORDSWORTH. THE WREATH. SOUGHT the garden's gay parterre And thought I surely here might find Some emblem of her lovely mind, Where taste displays the varied bloom * See, in Chaucer, and the elder poets, the honours formerly paid to this flower. |