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evening, the flowers were in their full magnificence. Here were thousands of blossoms, rising tier above tier, higher than one could reach, and extending as far as you could see, glittering in the moonlight, and perfuming the air with their fragrance. As morning approached they began to wilt and fade. The show lasted in its profusion for two nights only. On the third night there were a few scattering blossoms amid the wrecks of the previous evenings. The Rev. J. Usborne obtained some good photographs by a flash light, which will astonish his friends in the United States and Canada. Simultaneously with the show at Punchbowl there were displays on a smaller scale in the Valley road, by the summer palace of Queen Emma, and in Judd street. There was a second flowering at the September full moon."-H. D. M.

"I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beside the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

"Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

"The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee ;-

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company;

I gazed-and gazed-but little thought What wealth that show to me had brought.

"For oft, when on my couch I lie,

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils."

I

THE COCOANUT.

T did sound "passing strange" to one, born in New England, and loving the elm above all other trees, to hear it remarked, with perfect complacency and assurance, that "there was no tree so beautiful as the cocoanut, when seen on the shore from an incoming vessel"; and I almost lost my breath in going, mentally, at one bound, from our beautiful and graceful elm to the gaunt, tall, branchless, boughless, uncompanionable-looking tree of Hawaii and the South Seas. At first the very thought of such disloyalty to the home of my birth filled me with indignation. But in less time than a few years I, too, came to believe in the cocoanut. We "live and learn"; and I lived to learn and to indorse the sentiment with all my heart; to coolly pass by elm and England's boast, the "Pride of India," brilliantly-colored maples, royal palm, and traveler's, and indeed every other tree, to rejoice at and lift my hat to the cocoanut! Yes.

True, it does stand often quite alone in its own strength, like some one sentinel on an outer wall, a single tree, far away from all companionship, on some point of the shore, rising from the sand-up, up, forty, fifty, sixty feet, until its feathery, star

like crown seems ambitious to touch the clouds. Yes, with its great height and its century of ageand more, perchance-pointing upward to the sky and outward to the horizon-pointing upward, waving to the sky, then bending and worshiping the sea! Yes, it loves the shore and the sea, watching for the vessels ever-a landmark for the sailor. And when so old and so weather-beaten, with its long, long service of patient watching for ships that will never come to those shores more vessels that had been there again and again, in youth and middle age, now grown old and unfit for service--others wrecked and lost half a century ago!

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When it has lost its crown-its wealth of leaves and clusters of nuts-long years before, you can still see it standing there-the brave, old veteran!-with its tapering stem pointing spire-like upward, and outward to the sea. Aloha, golden-hearted old cocoanut! And so I mean to tell you, if you will stay, how this cocoanut-tree came to grow upon me altogether, and why and how I know that it is "a thing of beauty" and "a joy forever" to a dweller in the tropics.

Again, a perfect fringe of them may be seen, or a group, as of one family, or a grove, even. Look! that tall one at this minute is eagerly nodding and waving its last farewell to the vessel you can see, as a mere speck, against the horizon. Ah, she was here in her youth as well—strong, fresh and beautiful-glorying in hull, and mast, and sail, that could and would defy

the world of waters, and come out victor through every storm! She will boast no more, alas! Her timbers are sea-worn and unworthy, her sails and spars are weak with long years of battling with winds and tempests. She will win port never again, but will go down in the next fierce and determined gale!

"What sighs have been wafted after that ship! what prayers offered up at the deserted fire-side of home! How often has the mistress, the wife, and the mother, pored over the daily news, to catch some casual intelligence of this rover of the deep! How has expectation darkened into anxiety- anxiety into dread-and dread into despair! Alas! not one memento shall ever return for love to cherish. All that that shall ever be known is, that she sailed from her port, 'and was never heard of more.""

"Eternal Father, strong to save,

Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep

Its own appointed limit keep;

O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea.

"O Christ, whose voice the waters heard,
["Peace, be still!"]

And hushed their raging at Thy word,
Who walkedst on the foaming deep,

And calm amidst the storm didst sleep;
O hear us when we cry to Thee

For those in peril on the sea."

The cocoanuts, say they, too, were young when first they saw their friend, the ship-the big white birdskimming gaily before the breeze, in the gloriously

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