THE FLOWER OF FENESTRELLA.

CHARLES VERAMONT, Count de Charney, is young and possessed of boundless wealth. He outlives every enjoyment; and, literally through exhaustion of feeling, plunges into a conspiracy against Napoleon, and is imprisoned for life in the small fortress of Fenestrella. Solitude nearly drives him mad; he curses fate, life, the world, and he denies God. Suddenly a small plant springs up between two stones of the pavement; and to this plant he gives the endearing name of Picciola. He actually forms a friendship for it; and at length loves it with all the force of which that tender passion is susceptible. He by degrees learns the value of life; is awakened to the beauty of the world, and learns to acknowledge and worship God with sincere and fervent piety.-See Mrs. Gore's "PICCIOLA."

Dull vapours fill the joyless air,
And cold the sunbeam falls

Within the court-yard, paved and bare,
'Neath Fenestrella's walls.

While winters upon winters roll,
There hath a captive trod;
His was that madness of the soul
Which knows not of a God.

One morn between the clefts of stone
Two leaflets burst to view;

And day by day, and one by one,

The fragile branches grew.

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It grew-nor canker knew-nor blight,
'Neath sun, and storm, and shower;
A blessing to the captive's sight
It grew a dungeon flower!

Oh, beautiful and gentle thing!
Meek offspring of the sky!
Comest thou, like a breath of spring,
To whisper and to die?

The captive marked its growth, and felt
His soul subdued to tears:
That tender thing had power to melt
The gathered frosts of years.

He who had blindly trod the maze
Of learning and of power,
Stood watching with awakened gaze
The opening of a flower!

He traced the powers of sun and dew-
The light-the breath that fanned;
And owned at length, to nature true,
His great Creator's hand.

Great God! with pure and wise design,
Still, still 'mid all we see,

Thou blendest thus some mystic sign-
Some voice which breathes of Thee!

WARD'S MISCELLANY.

God might have bade the earth bring forth
Enough for great and small,

The oak-tree, and the cedar-tree,
Without a flower at all.

He might have made enough, enough,
For every want of ours,

For luxury, medicine, and toil,
And yet have made no flowers.

The ore within the mountain-mine
Requireth none to grow,
Nor doth it need the lotus-flower
To make the river flow.

The clouds might give abundant rain,

The nightly dews might fall,

And the herb that keepeth life in man,
Might yet have drank them all.

Then wherefore, wherefore were they made,
All dyed with rainbow light,
All fashioned with supremest grace,
Upspringing day and night;—

Springing in valleys green and low,
And on the mountains high,
And in the silent wilderness,
Where no man passeth by?

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Our outward life requires them not,
Then wherefore had they birth ?—
To minister delight to man,
To beautify the earth;

To whisper hope-to comfort man
Whene'er his faith is dim;
For whoso careth for the flowers
Will care much more for him!

The impatient morn,

With gladness on her wings, calls forth, "Arise,"
To trace the hills, the vales, where thousand dyes
The ground adorn,

While the dew sparkles yet within the violet's eyes.

And when the day

In golden slumber sinks, with accents sweet
Mild Evening comes, to lure the willing feet
With her to stray,

Where'er the bashful flowers the observant eye may greet.

Near the moist brink

Of music-loving streams they ever keep,
And often in the lucid fountains peep;
Oft, laughing, drink

Of the mad torrent's spray, perch'd near the thunder

ing steep.

And every where

Along the plashy marge, and shallow bed
Of the still waters, they innumerous spread
Rock'd gently ther,

The white Nymphaea pillows its bright head.

Within the dell,

Within the rocky clefts they love to hide;
And hang adventurous on the steep hill-side;
Or rugged fall,

Where the strong eagle waves its wings in youthful pride.

In the green sea

Of forest leaves, where Nature wanton plays,
They modest bloom; there, through the verdant

maze

The tulip-tree

Its golden chalice oft triumphantly displays.

And of pure white,

Embedded 'mid its glossy leaves on high,
There the superb magnolia lures the eye;
While waving light,

The locust's myriad tassels scent the ambient sky.

But, O, ye bowers,

Ye valleys where the Spring perpetual reigns,
And flowers unnumbered, o'er the purple plains
Exuberant showers,

How fancy revels in your lovelier domains!

All love the light;

And yet what numbers spring within the shade,,
And blossom where no foot may e'er invade!
Till comes a blight,-

Comes unawares,-and then incontinent they fade!