L'Amant.

I sell to thee a Rosary,
Proving I am only thine;
By its sacred mystery,

I to thee each thought resign:
Fairest, turn thee not away,
Let thy love my faith repay.

La Dame.

I sell to thee a Parrot bright,
With each colour of the sky,
Thou art formed to charm the sight,
Learned in softest minstrelsy;

But to love, I am unknown,
Nor can understand its tone.

L'Amant.

I sell to thee a faded Wreath,
Teaching thee, alas! too well,
How I spent my latest breath,
Seeking all my truth to tell;
But thy coldness bade me die
Victim of thy cruelty.

La Dame.

I sell to thee the Honey-flower, Courteous, best, and bravest knight, Fragrant in the summer shower,

Shrinking from the sunny light:

May it not an emblem prov
Of untold, but tender love?

What though in our pride's selfish mood
We hold those times as dark and rude,
Yet give we, from our wealth of mind,
More grateful feeling, or refined?
And yield we unto Nature aught
Of loftier, or of holier thought,
Than they who gave sublimest power
To the small spring, and simple flower?

DEVOTIONAL

INCITEMENTS.

BY WORDSWORTH.

Where will they stop, those breathing Powers,
The spirits of the new-born flowers?
They wander with the breeze, they wind
Where'er the streams a passage find;
Up from their native ground they rise
In mute, aerial harmonies,

From humble violet, modest thyme
Exhaled, the essential odours climb,
As if no space below the sky

Their subtle flight could satisfy:

Heaven will not tax our thoughts with pride, If like ambition be their guide.

THE FLOWER SPIRITS

ANON.

We are the spirits that dwell in the flowers;
Ours is the exquisite music that flies,
When silence and moonlight reign over the bowers,
That bloom in the glory of tropical skies.
We woo the bird with his melody glowing,

To leap in the sunshine and warble his strain;
And ours is the odour, in turn, that bestowing,
The songster is paid for his music again.

There dwells no sorrow where we are abiding;

Care is a stranger, and troubles us not;

And the winds, as they pass, when too hastily riding, We woo, and they tenderly glide o'er the spot.

They pause, and we glow in their rugged embraces, They drink our warm breath, rich with odour and

song,

Then hurry away to their desolate places,

And look for us hourly, and think of us long.

Who of the dull earth that is moving around us
Would ever imagine, that, nursed in a rose,
At the opening of Spring our destiny found us
Close prisoned, until the first bud should unclose;
Then, as the dawning of light breaks upon us,
Our ringlets of silk we unfold to the air,

And leap off in joy to the music that won us,

And made us the tenants of climates so fair.

THE FLOWER SPIRIT.

BY CHARLES SWAIN.

When earth was in its golden prime,
Ere grief or gloom had marred its hue,
And Paradise, unknown to crime,
Beneath the love of angels grew,
Each flower was then a spirit's home,
Each tree a living shrine of song;
And, oh! that ever hearts could roam,-
Could quit for sin that seraph throng!

But there the spirit lingers yet,

Though dimness o'er our visions fall; And flowers that seem with dew-drops wet, Weep angel-tears for human thrall; And sentiments and feelings move The soul, like oracles divine; And hearts that ever bowed to love,

First found it by the flowers' sweet shrine.,

A voiceless eloquence and power,

Language that hath in life no sound, Still haunts, like Truth, the spirit-flower And hallows even Sorrow's ground. The wanderer gives it Memory's tear, Whilst Home seems pictured on its leaf; And hopes, and hearts, and voices dear, Come o'er him-beautiful as brief.

Tis not the bloom, though wild or rare,
It is the spirit power within,

Which melts and moves our souls, to share
The Paradise we here might win.
For heaven itself around us lies,

Not far, not yet our reach beyond,
And we are watched by angel's eyes,
With hope and faith still fond!

I well believe a spirit dwells

Within the flower! least changed of all
That of the passed Immortal tells-
The glorious meeds before man's fall;
Yet, still, though I should never see
The mystic grace within it shine—
Its essence is sublimity,
Its feeling all divine.

FIELD FLOWERS.

FROM BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

Flowers of the field, how meet ye seem
Man's frailty to pourtray,

Blooming so fair in morning's beam,

Passing at eve away;

Teach this, and-oh! though brief your reign

Sweet flowers ye shall not live in vain.

Go, form a monitory wreath

For youth's unthinking brow;

Go, and to busy mankind breathe
What most he fears to know;