THE BLUE PASSION-FLOWER.* ARE there not here a thousand things If sanctified imaginings Be to those musings given? Do we not see above our head And tints through all the earth o'erspread No pencil can supply? If Paradise be lost,-yet still One plant its flowers afford, On which is form'd with matchless skill, The thorny crown that circled round The dying SAVIOUR's head; The hammer, scourge, and nails are found, Pale pensive beauty,-open throw And to th' attentive spirit show The meek and lowly ONE. See "Passion Flower," by B. BARTON. M. THE SKY-LARK. ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth, where cares abound; Or, while thy wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest, upon the dewy ground? Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings compos'd, and music still! To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mount, daring warbler! that love-prompted strain, Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain; Leave to the nightingale the shady wood ;- "Nothing can be more pleasing than to see the Lark warbling on the wing; raising its note as it soars, until it seems lost in the immense height above us; the note continuing, the bird itself unseen: to see it then descending with a swell as it comes from the clouds, yet sinking by degrees as it approaches its nest, the spot where all its affections are centred ;-the spot which has prompted all this joy."-Goldsmith. Bloomfield has also given us a lively and accurate description of the soaring of the Lark, in his Farmer's Boy : Yet oft beneath a cloud she sweeps along, Save when she wheels direct from shade to light. TO THE EVENING PRIMROSE. FAIR flower! that shunn'st the glare of day, To evening's hues of sober grey Be thine the offering, owing long Though transient as thy flower. I love to watch at silent eve Thy scatter'd blossoms' lonely light, I love at such an hour to mark Their beauty, greet the night-breeze chill, And shine, 'mid shadows gathering dark, The garden's glory still. For such 'tis sweet to think the while, When cares and griefs the breast invade, Is friendship's animating smile, In sorrow's darkening shade. Thus it bursts forth, like thy pale cup Amid its chilling fears. And still more animating far, If meek Religion's eye may trace, E'en in thy glimmering earth-born star A A The hope that as thy beauteous bloom B. BARTON. The Evening Tree-Primrose, Enothera biennis, displays its flowers between the hours of six and seven in the evening, but their beauty fades on being exposed to the rays of the sun next morning. This wonderful property is noticed by Dr. Langhorne, in his Fables of Flora : The Evening Primrose shuns the day THE NIGHT-BLOWING CEREUS. CAN it be true? so fragrant and so fair! Peerless flower! the heavens alone exhale Christian Guardian, 1827. The Night-blowing Cereus, Cactus grandiflorus, a native of Jamaica and Vera Cruz, expands a beautiful corolla, and admits a fragrant odour, for a few hours in the night. The flower is about eight or nine inches in diameter, the inside of the calyx of a splendid yellow, and the numerous petals of a pure white. It begins to open about seven in the evening, and closes before sunrise. THE PURPLE DEAD-NETTLE. A LITTLE herb of dark-red hue On I met with in my walk, sunny bank it verdant grew, In yonder hazel balk. Not earliest of the Spring it blows, Yet earlier few appear; Scarce melted have rough Winter's snows It is not as a primrose sweet, I know not if an ass or sheep It is a weed-then why not throw And, in its place, let others grow No, let it be: despise it not; From HIM who made it, power; REV. J. RICHARDSON. |