HYMN TO THE FLOWERS. BY HORACE SMITH. Day-stars! that ope your eyes with morn to twinkle From rainbow galaxies of earth's creation, Ye matin worshippers! who bending lowly Ye bright mosaics! that with storied beauty 'Neath cloister'd boughs each floral bell that swingeth, Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column But to that fane most catholic and solemn To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, There, as in solitude and shade I wander Through the lone aisles, or stretched upon the sod, Awed by the silence, reverently ponder The ways of God, Your voiceless lips, O flowers, are living preachers, Floral apostles! that in dewy splendor "Thou wast not, Solomon, in all thy glory, In the sweet-scented pictures, heavenly Artist! With which thou paintest Nature's wide-spread hall, What a delightful lesson thou impartest Of love to all! Not useless are ye, flowers! though made for pleasure, Blooming o'er fields and wave by day and night, From every source your sanction bids me treasure Harmless delight. Ephemeral sages! what instructers hoary For such a world of thought could furnish scope? Each fading calyx a memento mori, Yet fount of hope! Posthumous glories! angel-like collection! Upraised from seed or bulb interred in earth, Ye are to me a type of resurrection And second birth. Were I, O God! in churchless lands remaining, Far from all teachers and from all divines, My soul would find, in flowers of thy ordaining, Priests, sermons, shrines! A SONG. BY THOMAS CHURCHYARD. It is not beauty I demand, A crystal brow, the moon's despair, Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand, Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair.. Tell me not of your starry eyes, Your lips, that seem on roses fed, A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks, Than summer winds a-wooing flowers. And what are cheeks, but ensigns oft, That wave hot youth to fields of blood? Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft, Do Greece or Ilium any good? Eyes can with baleful ardor burn, Poison can breathe, that erst perfumed; There's many a white hand holds an urn, With lover's hearts to dust consumed. For crystal brows, there 's naught within; Give me, instead of beauty's bust, One in whose gentle bosom I Could pour my secret heart of woes, My earthly comforter! whose love Hers could not stay, for sympathy. LOVE FOR ALL. BY LYDIA MARIA CHILD. (Written just after John C. Colt avoided capital punishment, by suicide.) to be surrounded by circumstances a little more dangerous and exciting, and perhaps you, who now walk abroad in the sunshine of respectability, might have come under the ban of human laws, as you have into frequent disobedience of the divine; and then that one foul blot would have been regarded as the hieroglyphic symbol of your whole life. Between you and the inmate of the penitentiary, society sees a difference so great, that you are scarcely recognized as belonging to the same species; but there is One who judgeth not as man judgeth. Every year of my life I grow more and more convinced, that it is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and good, and dwell as little as possible on the evil and the false. Society has done my spirit grievous wrong, for the last few weeks, with its legal bull-baitings, and its hired murderers. They have made me ashamed of belonging to the When Mrs. Fry spoke at Newgate, she was wont human species; and were it not that I struggled to address both prisoners and visiters as sinners. hard against it, and prayed earnestly for a spirit of When Dr. Channing alluded to this practice, she forgiveness, they would have made me hate my race. Yet feeling thus, I did wrong to them. Most of them meekly replied, In the sight of God, there is not, had merely caught the contagion of murder, and real-perhaps, so much difference as men think.' In the midst of recklessness, revenge, and despair, there is ly were not aware of the nature of the fiend they often a glimmering evidence that the divine spark is not quite extinguished. Who can tell into what a holy flame of benevolence and self-sacrifice it might have been kindled, had the man been surrounded from his cradle by an atmosphere of love? Surely these considerations should make us judge mercifully of the sinner, while we hate the sin with wait for us all. The highest and holiest example tenfold intensity, because it is an enemy that lies in teaches us to forgive all crimes, while we palliate none. harbored. Probably there was not a single heart in the community, not even the most brutal, that would not have been softened, could it have entered into confidential intercourse with the prisoner as Dr. Anthon did. All would then have learned that he was a human being, with a heart to be melted, and a conscience to be roused, like the rest of us; that under the turbid and surging tide of proud, exasperated feelings, ran a warm current of human affections, which, with more genial influences, might have flowed on deeper and stronger, mingling its. waters with the river of life. All this each one would have known, could he have looked into the heart of the poor criminal as God looketh. But his whole life was judged by a desperate act, done in the in-tone, is helping to build penitentiaries and prisons, sanity of passion; and the motives and the circumstances were revealed to the public only through the cold barbarisms of the law, and the fierce exaggerations of an excited populace; therefore he seemed like a wild beast, walled out from human sympathies,-not as a fellow-creature, with like passions and feelings as themselves. Would that we could learn to be kind-always and everywhere kind! Every jealous thought I cherish, every angry word I utter, every repulsive and to fill them with those who merely carry the And rescue universal man from the hunting hell-hounds of his doings.' Carlyle, in his French Revolution, speaking of one And so I return, as the old preachers used to say, of the three bloodiest judges of the Reign of Terror, to my first proposition; that we should think gently says Marat too had a brother, and natural affec-of all, and claim kindred with all, and include all, tions; and was wrapt once in swaddling-clothes, and without exception, in the circle of our kindly symslept safe in a cradle, like the rest of us.' We are pathies. I would not thrust out even the hangman, too apt to forget these gentle considerations when though methinks if I were dying of thirst, I would talking of public criminals. rather wait to receive water from another hand than If we looked into our souls with a more wise hu- his. Yet what is the hangman but a servant of the mility, we should discover, in our own ungoverned law? And what is the law but an expression of anger the germ of murder; and meekly thank God | public opinion? And if public opinion be brutal, that we, too, had not been brought into temptations and thou a component part thereof, art thou not the too fiery for our strength. It is sad to think how hangman's accomplice? In the name of our comthe records of a few evil days may blot out from the mon Father, sing thy part of the great chorus in the memory of our fellow-men whole years of generous truest time, and thus bring this crashing discord into thoughts and deeds of kindness; and this, too, when harmony! each one has before him the volume of his own broken resolutions, and oft-repeated sins. The temptation which most easily besets you, needed, perhaps, to be only a little stronger; you needed only And if at times, the discord proves too strong for thee, go out into the great temple of Nature, and drink in freshness from her never-failing fountain. The devices of men pass away as a vapour; but VOICES OF THE TRUE-HEARTED. LIBRAR UNIVE she changes never. Above all fluctuations of opi- | Nay, verily; for it often humbles me to tears, to nion, and all the tumult of the passions, she smiles think how much I am loved more than I deserve; ever, in various but unchanging beauty. I have gone to her with tears in my eyes, with a heart full of the saddest forebodings, for myself and all the human race; and lo, she has shown me a babe plucking a white clover, with busy, uncertain little fingers, and the child walked straight into my heart, and prophesied as hopefully as an angel; and I believed her, and went on my way rejoicing. The language of nature, like that of music, is universal; it speaks to the heart, and is understood by all. Dialects belong to clans and sects; tones to the universe. High above all language, floats music on its amber cloud. It is not the exponent of opinion, but of feeling. The heart made it; therefore it is infinite. It reveals more than language can ever utter, or thoughts conceive. And high as music is above mere dialects-winging its godlike way, while verbs and nouns go creeping-even so sounds the voice of Love, that clear, treble-note of the universe, into the heart of man, and the ear of Jehovah. while thousands, far nearer to God, pass on their Believe me, the great panacea for all the disorders when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?' If we have faith in this holy principle, where is it written on our laws or our customs? Write it on thine own life and men reading it here; a power mightier than coercion. And thus In sincere humility do I acknowledge that if I am less guilty than some of my human brothers, it is mainly because I have been beloved. Kind emotions and impulses have not been sent back to me, like dreary echoes, through empty rooms. All round me at this moment are tokens of a friendly heart-warmth. A sheaf of dried grasses brings near the gentle image of one who gathered them for love; a varied group of the graceful lady-fern tells me of summered that evil could be overcome only with good. But rambles in the woods, by one who mingled thoughts of me with all her glimpses of nature's beauty. A rose-bush, from a poor Irish woman, speaks to me of her blessings. A bird of paradise, sent by friendship to warm the wintry hours with thoughts of sun-shall say, lo, something greater than vengeance is ny Eastern climes, cheers me with its floating beauty, like a fairy fancy. Flower-tokens from the best of neighbors, have come all summer long, to bid me a blithe good morning, and tell me news of sunshine and fresh air. A piece of sponge, graceful as if it grew on the arms of the wave, reminds me of Grecian seas, and of Hylas borne away by waternymphs. It was given me for its uncommon beauty; and who will not try harder to be good, for being deemed a fit recipient of the beautiful? A root, which promises to bloom into fragrance, is sent by an old Quaker lady, whom I know not, but who says, I would fain minister to thy love of flowers.' Affection sends childhood to peep lovingly at me from engravings, or stand in classic grace, embodied in the little plaster cast. The far-off and the near, the past and the future, are with me in my humble apartment. True, the mementoes cost little of the world's wealth; for they are of the simplest kind; but they express the universe-because they are thoughts of love, clothed in forms of beauty. Why do I mention these things! From vanity? This hope is coming toward us, with a halo of sunshine round its head; in the light it casts before, let us do works of zeal with the spirit of love. Man may be redeemed from his thraldom! He will be redeemed. For the mouth of the Most High hath spoken it. It is inscribed in written prophecy, and He utters it to our hearts in perpetual revelation. To you, and me, and each of us, He says, Go, bring my people out of Egypt, into the promised land.' To perform this mission, we must love both the evil and the good, and shower blessings on the just as well as the unjust. Thanks to our Heavenly Father, I have had much friendly aid on my own spiritual pilgrimage; through many a cloud has pierced a sunbeam, and over many a pitfall have I been guided by a garland. In gratitude for this, fain would With the silent Bush.boy alone by my side: I help others to be good, according to the small mea- | Afar in the desert I love to ride, AFAR IN THE DESERT. BY THOMAS PRINGLE. Afar in the desert I love to ride, With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side: Afar in the desert I love to ride, With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side: Afar in the desert I love to ride, With that sadness of heart which no stranger may Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot; scan, I fly to the desert afar from man! And the bitter melon, for food and drink, s the pilgrim's fare by the salt lake's brink; A region of drought, where no river glides, But the barren earth, and the burning sky, And here, while the night-winds round me sigh, A still small voice comes through the wild, THE AWAKENING OF ENDYMION. Lone upon a mountain, the pine-trees wailing round him, Lone upon a mountain the Grecian youth is laid; Sleep, mystic sleep, for many a year has bound him, Yet his beauty, like a statue's, pale and fair, is undecayed, When will he awaken? When will he awaken? a loud voice hath been crying Night after night, and the cry has been in vain; Winds, woods, and waves found echoes for replying, But the tones of the beloved ones were never heard again. When will he awaken? Asked the midnight's silver queen. Never mortal eye has looked upon his sleeping; Parents, kindred, comrades haye mourned for him as dead; Yes, he has awakened For the midnight's happy queen! By day the gathered clouds have had him in their What is this old history, but a lesson given, keeping, And at night the solemn shadows round his rest are shed. When will he awaken? Long has been the cry of faithful Love's imploring; Long has Hope been watching with soft eyes fixed above; When will the Fates, the life of life restoring, When will he awaken? Asks the midnight's weary queen. How true love still conquers by the deep strength of truth, How all the impulses, whose native home is heaven, Sanctify the visions of hope, and faith, and youth? "T is for such they waken! When every worldly thought is utterly forsaken, Comes the starry midnight, felt by life's gifted few; Then will the spirit from its earthly sleep awaken To a being more intense, more spiritual, and true. So doth the soul awaken, Like that youth to night's fair queen! |