Sure, since I looked at early morn,

Those honeysuckle buds

Have swelled to double growth; that thorn
Hath put forth larger studs;

That lilac's cleaving cones have burst,
The milk-white flowers revealing;

Even now, upon my senses first

Methinks their sweets are stealing.

The very earth, the steamy air,
Is all with fragrance rife;

And

grace and beauty every where Are flushing into life.

Down, down they come,-those fruitful stores!
Those earth-rejoicing drops!

A momentary deluge pours,-
Then thins, decreases, stops.

And ere the dimples on the stream
Have circled out of sight,
Lo! from the west a parting gleam
Breaks forth of amber light.

But yet, behold! abrupt and loud,
Comes down the glittering rain;
The farewell of a passing cloud,
The fringes of her train.

LOVE.

FITZ GREENE HALLECK.

"The imperial votress passed on

In maiden meditation, fancy free."

Midsummer Night's Dream.

"Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again?"
BENEDICT, in Much Ado about Nothing.

WHEN the tree of Love is budding first,

Ere yet its leaves are green,

Ere yet, by shower and sunbeam nurst
Its infant life has been;

The wild bee's slightest touch might wring
The buds from off the tree,

As the gentle dip of the swallow's wing
Breaks the bubbles on the sea.

But when its open leaves have found

A home in the free air,

Pluck them, and there remains a wound

That ever rankles there.

The blight of hope and happiness

Is felt when fond ones part,

And the bitter tear that follows is

The life-blood of the heart.

When the flame of love is kindled first,
'Tis the fire-fly's light at even,

'Tis dim as the wandering stars that burst
In the blue of the summer heaven.
A breath can bid it burn no more;
Or if, at times, its beams

Come on the memory, they pass o'er
Like shadows in our dreams.

But when that flame has blazed into
A being and a power,

And smiled in scorn upon the dew
That fell in its first warm hour,

'Tis the flame that curls round the martyr's head, Whose task is to destroy;

'Tis the lamp on the altars of the dead,

Whose light is not of joy!

Then crush, even in their hour of birth,

The infant buds of Love,

And tread his growing fire to earth,

Ere 't is dark in clouds above;
Cherish no more a cypress tree
To shade thy future years,
Nor nurse a heart-flame that may be
Quenched only with thy tears.

THE BELLE OF THE BALL.

W. M. Ꮲ Ꭱ Ꭺ Ꭼ Ꭰ .

YEARS-years ago-ere yet my dreams
Had been of being wise and witty;
Ere I had done with writing themes,

Or yawned o'er this infernal Chitty;
Years, years ago, while all my joys
Were in my fowling-piece and filly;

In short, while I was yet a boy,

I fell in love with Laura Lilly.

I saw her at a country ball;

There when the sound of flute and fiddle

Gave signal sweet in that old hall,

Of hands across and down the middle,

Hers was the subtlest spell by far

Of all that sets young hearts romancing:

She was our queen, our rose, our star;

And when she danced-oh, heaven, her dancing!

Dark was her hair, her hand was white;

Her voice was exquisitely tender,

Her every look, her every smile,

Shot right and left a score of arrows; I thought 't was Venus from her isle,

I wondered where she'd left her sparrows.

She talked of politics or prayers;

Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets; Of daggers or of dancing bears,

Of battles, or the last new bonnets; By candle-light, at twelve o'clock,

To me it mattered not a tittle,

If those bright lips had quoted Locke,

I might have thought they murmured Little.

Through sunny May, through sultry June,
I loved her with a love eternal;

I spoke her praises to the moon,

I wrote them for the Sunday Journal.
My mother laughed; I soon found out
That ancient ladies have no feeling;
My father frowned; but how should gout
Find any happiness in kneeling?

She was the daughter of a dean,
Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic;
She had one brother just thirteen,
Whose color was extremely hectic;
Her grandmother, for many a year,
Had fed the parish with her bounty;
Her second cousin was a peer,

And lord-lieutenant of the county.