FLOWERS.

SENSITIVE plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew;
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

And the spring arose on the garden fair,

Like the spirit of love, felt everywhere!

And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast

Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

The snowdrop, and then the violet,

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet;
And their breath was mix'd with fresh odour,

sent

From the turf, like the voice to the instrument.

Then the pied wind-flowers, and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all-
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess
Till they die of their own dear loveliness!

And the naiad-like lily of the vale,

Whom youth makes so fair, and passion so pale,
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;

And the hyacinth, purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,

It was felt like an odour within the sense;

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest,
Which unveil'd the depth of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air

The soul of her beauty and love lay bare;

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,

As a mœnad, its moonlight-colour'd cup,
Till the fiery star, which is its eye,

Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky;

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,

The sweetest flower for scent that blows!

And rare blossoms from every clime,

Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

And the sinuous paths of lawn and moss
Which led through the garden along and across-
Some open at once to the sun and the breeze,
Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees—

Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells

As fair as the fabulous asphodels,

And flowrets which, drooping as day droop'd too,
Fell into pavilions white, purple, and blue,

To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.

Shelley.

That the sweet buds with which a modest pride
Fell droopingly in slanting curve aside,
Their scanty-leaved and finely-tapering stems
Had not yet lost their starry diadems,

Caught from the early sobbings of the morn.

The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,
And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept
On the blue fields of heaven and then there crept

A little noiseless noise among the leaves,
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves;
For not the faintest motion could be seen
Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green.
There was wide wandering for the greediest eye,
To peer about upon variety;

Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim,
And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim;

To picture out the quaint and curious bending
Of a fresh woodland valley never-ending:

Or by the bowery clefts and leafy shelves,

Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves.

I gazed awhile, and felt as light and free

As though the fanning wings of Mercury

Had play'd upon my heels: I was light-hearted,
And many pleasures to my vision started;

So I straightway began to pluck a posy

Of luxuries bright, milky, soft, and rosy.

A bush of May flowers with the bees about them;

Ah, sure no tasteful nook could be without them;
And let a lush laburnum oversweep them,

And let long grass grow round the roots, to keep them

Moist, cool, and green; and shade the violets,

That they may bind the moss in leafy nets.

A filbert-edge with wild-brier overtwined,

And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind
Upon their summer thrones; there too should be

The frequent checker of a youngling tree,

That with a score of bright-green brethren shoots
From the quaint mossiness of aged roots:
Round which is heard a springhead of clear waters,
Prattling so wildly of its lovely daughters,
The spreading blue-bells: it may haply mourn
That such fair clusters should be rudely torn
From their fresh beds, and scatter'd thoughtlessly

By infant hands left on the path to die.
Open afresh your round of starry folds,

Ye ardent marigolds !

Dry up the moisture from your golden lids,

For great Apollo bids

That in these days your praises should be sung
On many harps, which he has lately strung;
And when again your dewiness he kisses,
Tell him, I have you in my world of blisses:
So haply when I rove in some far vale,
His mighty voice may come upon the gale.

Here are sweet-peas, on tiptoe for a flight,
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.
What next? A turf of evening primroses,
O'er which the mind may hover till it dozes;
O'er which it well might take a pleasant sleep,
But that 'tis ever startled by the leap

Of buds into ripe flowers.

Keats.