A love so pure I'll cherish,

Through all thy pain and prime; And when thy best friends perish,

I'll cheer thy latest time."

TO THE WILD CONVOLVULUS.

UPON the lap of Nature wild

I love to view thee, Beauty's child;
And mark the rose and lily white
Their charms in thy fair form unite:
I love to see thy trailing flowers
Quaffing the nectareous showers ;
I love to scent thy fragrance too,
When all thy cups are full of dew.
When shadows cross the solar beam,
Like sadness o'er a poet's dream,
Oh, how I joy to see the ray
Again upon thy bosom play!

I know not whether others feel

A pleasure by thy side to kneel,
And bless the Maker of the skies,

For kindling up such estacies;
But when the old green lane I pace,

And gaze upon thy smiling face,

Such feelings thrill my inmost soul,
As Reason's self cannot control.

There is a beauty in thine eye,
Which only poets can descry;
There is a halo round thy head,
Which only God himself can shed:
Ay, there's a glory circling thee
Which borders much on mystery,
A type to favoured mortals given
Of Beauty's antitype in Heaven.

THE WHITE VIOLET.

PALE Beauty went out 'neath a wintry sky,
From a nook where the gorse and the holly grew by,
And silently traversed the snow-covered earth

In search of a sign of floriferous birth.

It chanced, as she tearfully paced through a grove,

She shed a round symbol of sorrowful love,

When Flora decreed there should spring from the tear

A floret with fragrance of many a year.

It fell to the earth where a blue violet grew,

And clung to its root like a globule of dew;
And ere rough and burly March ushered in spring,
It sprang up a fragrant and beautiful thing.

With purple and gold on an emerald stem
"Tis mounted-this jewel, this lily-white gem,
And worn by a world as the rich and the rare,
The Queen of the Spring-time, the pride of the fair.

THE CELANDINE.

DEAR Celandine, fresh from the green

bank springing,

I hail thy visit to our world again;

I heard the skylark in the bright cloud singing,
I heard the thrush a-piping up the lane,
And saw the sun with lion-vigour flinging

The murky vapours from his golden mane.
Across my cheek the warm south wind came stealing,
With pressure soft as gentle mother's hand;
And Zephyr whispered, "Celandine's revealing
Her glory somewhere in this lovely land."

And then I wandered where, all joyously,

The stream rushed downward to the clamouring mill,

And watched it foam and labour boisterously

To pour its force upon the water-wheel.

And now I've found thee, bright as star-fire glowing, A little golden glory in the sun,

And feel new joy through all my being flowing,

As when I first beheld my only son.