If I plucked thee for my brother- If I plucked thee for my lover- Far away, o'er three green mountains, Far away, o'er three cool fountains! Translated by TALVI. TO BLOSSOMS. Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, Your date is not so past But you may stay yet here awhile, What were ye born to be, An hour or half's delight, And so to bid good-night? But you are lovely leaves, where we Like you awhile they glide, ROBERT HERRICK, 1591. CHILDREN'S POSIES. FROM "JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST." The amusements and fancies of children, when connected with flowers, are always pleasing, being generally the conceptions of innocent minds unbiased by artifice or pretense; and their love of them seems to spring from a genuine feeling and admiration-a kind of sympathy with objects as fair as their own untainted minds; and I think it is early flowers which constitute their first natural playthings; though summer presents a greater number and variety, they are not so fondly selected. We have our daisies strung and wreathed about our dress; our coronals of orchises and primroses, our cowslip balls, etc.; and one application of flowers at this season I have noticed, which, though perhaps it is local, yet it has a remarkably pretty effect, forming, for the time, one of the gayest little shrubs that can be seen. A small branch or long spray of the whitethorn, with all its spines uninjured, is selected; and on these, its alternate thorns, a white and blue violet, plucked from their stalks, are stuck upright in succession, until the thorns are covered, and when placed in a flower-pot of moss, it has perfectly the appearance of a beautiful vernal flowering dwarf shrub, and as long as it remains fresh is an object of surprise and delight. J. L. KNAPP. LOVE'S WREATH. When Love was a child, and went idling round O'erhead from the trees hung a garland fair, A fountain ran darkly beneath; 'Twas Pleasure that hung the bright flowers up there, Love knew it and jump'd at the wreath. But Love did not know-and at his weak years, What urchin was likely to know?— That sorrow had made of her own salt tears, That fountain which murmur'd below. He caught at the wreath, but with too much haste, As boys when impatient will do; It fell in those waters of briny taste, And the flowers were all wet through. Yet this is the wreath he wears night and day; With Pleasure's own luster, each leaf, they say, TO DAFFODILS. Fair daffodils, we weep to see Has not attain'd its noon. THOMAS MOore. I stood tiptoe upon a little hill; The air was cooling, and so very still, That the sweet buds which with a modest pride Fell droopingly in slanting curve aside, Their scanty-leaved and finely tapering stems Had not yet lost their starry diadems, Caught from the early sobbings of the morn. The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn. And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept A little noiseless noise among the leaves, Born of the very sigh that silence heaves; Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green. Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim, To picture out the quaint and curious bending Or by the bowery clefts and leafy shelves, Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves. I gazed awhile, and felt as light and free As though the fanning wings of Mercury Had play'd upon my heels: I was light-hearted, And many pleasures to my vision started; So I straightway began to pluck a posy Of luxuries bright, milky, soft, and rosy. A bush of May-flowers with the bees about them; And let a lush laburnum oversweep them, And let long grass grow round the roots, to keep them Moist, cool, and green; and shade the violets, That they may bind the moss in leafy nets. A filbert-edge with wild-brier overtwined, That with a score of bright-green brethren shoots Round which is heard a spring head of clear waters. From their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly By infant hands left on the path to die. Open afresh your round of starry folds, Ye ardent marigolds! Dry up the moisture from your golden lids, For great Apollo bids That in these days your praises should be sung On many harps, which he has lately strung; Here are sweet-peas, on tiptoe for a flight, Of buds into ripe flowers. 147 JOHN KEATS. TO THE SWEET-BRIER. Our sweet autumnal western-scented wind In all the blooming waste it left behind, As that sweet-brier yields it; and the shower One half so lovely; yet it grows along The poor girl's pathway; by the poor man's door. And humble as the bud, so humble be the song. I love it, for it takes its untouch'd stand And e'en its fragrant leaf has not its mate Bring from the odors of the spicy East. You love your flowers and plants, and will you hate That freshest will awake, and sweetest go to rest? J. G. C. BRAINARD. |