THE NIGHT-BLOOMING CEREUS.

HENRY THEODORE TUCKERMAN.

How coyly thou the golden hours dost number!
Not all their splendor can thy love beguile;
Vainly the morning zephyrs fan thy slumber,
And noon's rich glory wooes thee for a smile.

For thou dost blossom when cool shadows hover,
And dews are falling through the dusky air;
When with new fervor dreams the happy lover,
And winds grow solemn with the voice of prayer.

While all around thee earth's bright things are sleeping, Gay lilies fade and droops the crimson rose,

Fresh is the vigil thou alone art keeping,

And sweet the charms thy virgin leaves disclose.

Thus, in the soul, is deep love ever hidden,
Thus noble minds will fondly shun the throng,
And, at their chosen time, start forth unbidden,
With peerless valor or undying song.

Thus the true heart its mystic leaves concealing,
Folds them serenely from the world's broad glare,
Its treasured bliss and inmost grief revealing
To the calm starlight and the dewy air.

Blest is thy lesson, vestal of the flowers,

Not in the sunshine is our whole delight; Some joys bloom only in life's pensive hours, And pour their fragrance on the breeze of night.

HOW TO WRITE.

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY.

NEVER be in haste in writing.

Let that thou utterest be of nature's flow,

Not art's; a fountain's, not a pump's. But once
Begun, work thou all things into thy work;
And set thyself about it, as the sea

About earth, lashing at it day and night.

And leave the stamps of thine own soul in it,

As thorough as the fossil flower in clay.

The theme shall start and struggle in thy breast, Like to a spirit in its tomb at rising,

Rending the stones, and crying, Resurrection!

My life is like the summer rose

That opens to the morning sky, But ere the shades of evening close,

Is scattered on the ground-to die! Yet on the rose's humble bed The sweetest dews of night are shed, As if she wept the waste to see ;— But none shall weep a tear for me!

My life is like the autumn leaf

That trembles in the moon's pale ray; Its hold is frail,-its date is brief,Restless, and soon to pass away! Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade, The parent tree will mourn its shade, The winds bewail the leafless tree;But none shall breathe a sigh for me!

My life is like the prints which feet Have left on Tampa's desert strand : Soon as the rising tide shall beat,

All trace will vanish from the sand;

Yet, as if grieving to efface

All vestige of the human race,

On that lone shore loud moans the sea;-
But none, alas! shall mourn for me!

INSCRIPTION ON THE TOMB OF HIS SON.

GEORGE CANNING.

THOUGH short thy span, yet Heaven's unsearched decrees, Which made that shortened span one long disease,

In chastening merciful, gave ample scope

For mild redeeming virtues-Faith and Hope,
Meek Resignation, pious Charity.

And since this world was not the world for thee,
Far from thy path removed with partial care
Strife, Glory, Pain, and Pleasure's flowery snare;
Bade Earth's temptations pass thee harmless by,
And fixed on Heaven thine unreverted eye.

Oh! marked from birth and nurtured for the skies;
In youth with more than learning's wisdom wise,
As sainted martyrs patient to endure,

Simple as unweaned infancy, and pure;

Pure from all stain, save that of human clay,
Which Christ's atoning blood hath washed away;
By mortal suff'rings now no more oppressed,
Mount, sinless spirit, to thy destined rest,
While I, reversed our natures' kindlier doom,
Pour forth a father's sorrows on thy tomb.

THE RAINBOW.

MRS. WELBY.

I SOMETIMES have thoughts, in my loneliest hours,
That lie on my heart like the dew on the flowers,
Of a ramble I took one bright afternoon

When my
heart was as light as a blossom in June;
The green earth was moist with the late fallen showers,
The breeze fluttered down and blew open the flowers,
While a single white cloud, to its haven of rest
On the white wing of peace, floated off in the west.

As I threw back my tresses to catch the cool breeze,
That scattered the rain-drops and dimpled the seas,
Far up the blue sky
the blue sky a fair rainbow unrolled
Its soft-tinted pinions of purple and gold.
'T was born in a moment, yet, quick as its birth
It had stretched to the uttermost ends of the earth,
And, fair as an angel, it floated as free,

With a wing on the earth and a wing on the sea.

How calm was the ocean! how gentle its swell!
Like a woman's soft bosom it rose and it fell;

While its light sparkling waves, stealing laughingly o'er,
When they saw the fair rainbow, knelt down on the shore.