HYMN TO THE FLOWERS. AY-STARS that ope your Its choir, the winds and waves; its organ, eyes with man, to twinkle From rainbow galaxies of earth's creation, And dewdrops on her holy altars sprinkle As a libation ! Ye matin worshippers who, bending lowly Before the uprisen sun, Throw from your chalices a sweet and holy Ye bright mosaics that with storied beauty The floor of Nature's temple tessellate With numerous emblems of instructive duty Your forms create! thunder; Its dome, the sky. There, as in solitude and shade I wander Through the green aisles, or, stretched upon the sod, Awed by the silence, reverently ponder Your voiceless lips, O flowers, are living preachers, Each cup a pulpit and each leaf a book, Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers From loneliest nook. Floral apostles that in dewy splendor "Weep without woe and blush without a crime," 'Neath cloistered boughs each floral bell that Oh, may I deeply learn, and ne'er surrender, swingeth And tolls its perfume on the passing air Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call to prayer. Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column Attest the feebleness of mortal hand, But to that fane, most catholic and solemn, Which God hath planned To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply, Your lore sublime! "Thou wert not, Solomon, in all thy glory, Arrayed," the lilies cry, "in robes like ours; How vain your grandeur! ah, how transitory Are human flowers!" In the sweet-scented pictures, heavenly Artist, With which thou paintest Nature's widespread hall, What a delightful lesson thou impartest Of love to all! On Alpine heights the herdsman tends his herd; His Shepherd is the Lord, IN Translation of CHARLES T. BROOKS. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS. N every village marked with little spire, Embowered in trees and hardly known to Fame, There dwells in lowly shed and mean attire A matron old whom we Schoolmistress name, Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame; They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent, Awed by the power of this relentless dame, And ofttimes, on vagaries idly bent, For unkempt hair or task unconned are sorely shent. And all in sight doth rise a birchen tree Which Learning near her little dome did. stowe, Whilom a twig of small regard to see, Though now so wide its waving branches flow And work the simple vassals mickle woe; For not a wind might curl the leaves that blew But their limbs shuddered and their pulse beat low; And as they looked they found their hor ror grew With dark distrust and sad repentance filled, And stedfast hate and sharp affliction joined, And shaped it into rods and tingled at the And fury uncontrolled and chastisement un Few but have kenned, in semblance meet portrayed, The childish faces of old Eol's train- arrayed, How then would fare or Earth or Sky or Main Were the stern god to give his slaves the rein? And were not she rebellious breasts to quell, And were not she her statutes to maintain, The cot no more, I ween, were deemed A FELLOW in a market-town, the cell roar; Most musical, cried razors up and down, And offered twelve for eighteen pence, Which certainly seemed wondrous cheap, And, for the money, quite a heap, As every man would buy, with cash and sense. A country bumpkin the great offer heard— Poor Hodge, who suffered by a broad black beard That seemed a shoe-brush stuck beneath his nose; With cheerfulness the eighteen pence he paid, A thousand ways in wanton rings they And proudly to himself in whispers said, run. Heaven shield their short-lived pastimes, I implore! This rascal stole the razors, I suppose. "No matter if the fellow be a knave, For well may Freedom-erst so dearly Provided that the razors shave; won It certainly will be a monstrous prize." Appear to British elf more gladsome than So home the clown with his good-fortune For when my bones in grass-green sods Being well lathered from a dish or tub, are laid, For never may ye taste more careless hours Hodge now began with grinning pain to grub Just like a hedger cutting furze; |