"FOR THOUGHTS."

A PANSY on his breast she laid,

Splendid, and dark with Tyrian dyes; "Take it, 'tis like your tender eyes, Deep as the midnight heaven," she said.

The rich rose mantling in her cheek,
Before him like the dawn she stood,
Pausing upon Life's height, subdued,
Yet triumphing, both proud and meek.

And white as winter stars, intense

With steadfast fire, his brilliant face
Bent toward her with an eager grace,
Pale with a rapture half suspense.

"You give me then a thought, O Sweet!"
He cried, and kissed the purple flower,
And bowed by Love's resistless power,
Trembling he sank before her feet.

She crowned his beautiful bowed head
With one caress of her white hand;
"Rise up, my flower of all the land,
For all my thoughts are yours," she said.
-Celia Thaxter.

LOVE'S CALENDAR,

THE Summer comes and the Summer goes;
Wild-flowers are fringing the dusty lanes,
The swallows go darting through fragrant rains,
Then, all of a sudden-it snows.

Dear Heart, our lives so happily flow,

So lightly we heed the flying hours,

We only know Winter is gone-by the flowers, We only know Winter is come-by the snow.

-Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

67

THE DIAL OF FLOWERS.

'Twas a lovely thought to mark the hours,
As they floated in light away,
By the opening and the folding flowers
That laugh to the summer's day.

Thus had each moment its own rich hue,
And its graceful cup and bell,

In whose colored vase might sleep the dew,
Like a pearl in an ocean-shell.

To such sweet signs might the time have flow'd

In a golden current on,

Ere from the garden, man's first abode,

The glorious guests were gone.