Sweet smile of hope, delicious tear!
The sun, the shower indeed shall come,
The promised verdant shoot appear,

And Nature bid her blossoms bloom.

And thou, O Virgin Queen of Spring!
Shalt, from thy dark and lowly bed,
Bursting thy green sheath's silken string,
Unveil thy charms, and perfume shed;

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.

HILD of the Sun! pursue thy rapturous flight, Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light; And where the flowers of Paradise unfold, Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold. There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky, Expand and shut with silent ecstasy!—

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.

115

HYMN FOR JUNE.

"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."-1 John iv. 8.

HY comes this fragrance on the Summer breeze,
The blended tribute of ten thousand flowers,
To me, a frequent wanderer 'mid the trees

That form these gay, though solitary bowers!
One answer is around, beneath, above;
The echo of the voice, that God is Love!

Why bursts such melody from tree and bush,
The overflowing of each songster's heart,
So filling mine, that it can scarcely hush

Awhile to listen, but would take its part?
'Tis but one song I hear where'er I rove,
Though countless be the notes, that God is Love!

Why leaps the streamlet down the mountain's side,
Hastening so swiftly to the vale beneath,
To cheer the shepherd's thirsty flock, or glide
Where the hot sun has left a faded wreath;
Or, rippling, aid the music of the grove?
Its own glad voice replies, that God is Love!

In starry heavens, at the midnight hour,

In ever-varying hues at morning's dawn,
In the fair bow athwart the falling shower,

In forest, river, lake, rock, hill, and lawn,
One truth is written: all conspire to prove,
What grace of old revealed, that God is Love!

Is it a fallen world on which I gaze?
Am I as deeply fallen as the rest?
Yet joys partaking, past my utmost praise,
Instead of wandering forlorn, unblest!

It is as if an unseen spirit strove

To grave upon my heart, that God is Love!

Yet would'st thou see, my soul, this truth displayed In characters which wondering angels read,

And read, adoring; go, imploring aid

To gaze with faith, behold the Saviour bleed! Thy God in human form! oh, what can prove, If this suffice thee not, that God is Love?

Cling to His cross, and let thy ceaseless prayer

Be, that thy grasp may fail not! and, ere long, Thou shalt ascend to that fair temple, where

In strains ecstatic an innumerous throng
Of saints and seraphs, round the throne above,
Proclaim for evermore that God is Love!