Uselessness divinest, Of a use the finest, Painteth us, the teachers of the end of use; Bless us, far and wide; Unto sick and prison'd thoughts we give sudden truce: Loves its sickliest planting, But its wall speaks loftier truth than Babylonian vaunting. Sagest yet the uses, Mix'd with our sweet juices, Whether man or May-fly, profit of the balm, As fair fingers heal'd Knights from the olden field We hold cups of mightiest force to give the wildest calm. Hath its plea for blooming; Life it gives to reverent lips, though death to the presuming. And oh! our sweet soul-taker, That thief, the honey maker, What a house hath he, by the thymy glen! In his talking rooms How the feasting fumes, Till the gold cups overflow to the mouths of men! The butterflies come aping Those fine thieves of ours, And flutter round our rifled tops, like tickled flowers with flowers. See those tops, how beauteous! What fair service duteous Round some idol waits, as on their lord the Nine Elfin court 'twould seem; And taught, perchance, that dream Which the old Greek mountain dreamt, upon nights divine. Human speech avails not; Yet there dies no poorest weed, that such a glory exhales not. Think of all these treasures, Every one a marvel, more than thought can say ; We thicken fields and bowers, And with what heaps of sweetness half stifle wanton May: Think of the mossy forests By the bee-birds haunted, And all those Amazonian plains, lone lying as enchanted. Trees themselves are ours; Fruits are born of flowers; Peach, and roughest nut, were blossoms in the spring; The lusty bee knows well The news, and comes pell-mell, And dances in the gloomy thicks with darksome antheming, Of planet-pressing ocean, We wash our smiling cheeks in peace-a thought for meek devotion. Tears of Phoebus--missings Of Cytherea's kissings, Have in us been found, and wise men find them still; Drooping grace unfurls Still Hyacinthus' curls, And Narcissus loves himself in the selfish rill : Thy red lip, Adonis, Still is wet with morning; And the step, that bled for thee, the rosy brier adorning. O! true things are fables, Fit for sagest tables, And the flowers are true things-yet no fables they; Fables were not more Bright, nor loved of yore Yet they grew not, like the flowers, by every old pathway: Fools may prize us never : Yet we rise, and rise, and rise-marvels sweet for ever. Who shall say, that flowers Dress not heaven's own bowers? Who its love, without us, can fancy-or sweet floor? Who shall even dare To say, we sprang not there And came not down that Love might bring one piece of heaven the more? O! pray believe that angels From those blue dominions, Brought us in their white laps down, 'twixt their golden pinions. LEIGH HUNT. ALPINE FLOWERS. Meek dwellers 'mid yon terror-stricken cliffs! -Tree nor shrub Dare that drear atmosphere; no polar pine O'er slippery steeps, or, trembling, treads the verge And marks ye in your placid loveliness Fearless, yet frail—and, clasping his still hands, LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. TO THE BRAMBLE FLOWER. Thy fruit full well the schoolboy knows, Wild bramble of the brake! So, put thou forth thy small white rose; Though woodbines flaunt and roses glow For dull the eye, the heart is dull That can not feel how fair, Amid all beauty, beautiful How delicate thy gauzy frill! How soft thy voice, when woods are still, But thou, wild bramble! back dost bring, The fresh green days of life's fair spring, Scorn'd bramble of the brake! once more To rove with thee the woodlands o'er, In freedom and in joy. EBENEZER ELLIOTT. THE PAINTED CUP. The fresh savannas of the Sagamon, Now, if thou art a poet, tell me not The faded fancies of an elder world; But leave these scarlet cups to spotted moths To swell the reddening fruit that even now W. C. BRYANT. THE WREATH OF GRASSES. The royal rose-the tulip's glow- The pansy's gold and purple wing, The snowdrop's smile may light the lea; My wreath of them shall be! FRANCES S. OSGOOD. DIVINATION. When a daffodil I see Hanging down his head toward me, First, I shall decline my head; ROBERT HERRICK, 1591. GRASS. Is all grass? Make you no distinction? No; all is grass; or if you will have some other name, be it so. Once, this is true, that all flesh is grass; and if that glory which shines so much in your eyes must have a difference, then this is all that it can have-it is but the flower of that same grass; somewhat above the common grass in gayness, a little |