Far from thy native place,

Strange eyes bend over thee;
Yet, oh! what stainless grace
Shines from thy patient face,
In low captivity.

Wand'rer from sunlit height,
Close to the bending blue!
Thou dost reflect its light
Down in the valley's night,
Lowly thou art, but true.

I, too, an exile here;

My home, like thine, above!

Though seen through many a tear,
So, may I, year by year,

Teach of the heights I love.

In spirit we ascended these Alps... till we gathered . . . the wonderful Edelweiss (noblewhite), which alone blooms amid eternal snows. -ANNA M. HOWITT.,

EDELWEISS

Fair white flower that often grows
Underneath the Alpine snows,

Where the searching wild wind blows.

In a purer, higher air

Thou so bravely bloomest, where

Not another flower would dare,

'Mid the snows that round thee drift,
And within each crevice sift,
Thou dost still thy head uplift;
Like a flower from paradise
Art thou, to the traveller's eyes,
Seeing thee with glad surprise.

May the lesson thou dost teach
In each heart far deeper reach
Than mere written word, or speech.
O sad ones, who sit and weep,
While the snows around you creep,
Covering many a fond hope deep,

Search beneath the frozen snows
Of your hearts, perchance there grows
For you yet, some rare sweet rose:

Some great joy to bless you still,
With content your lives to fill,
Peace and comfort to instil!

O tired soul who long hast lain,
Worn in spirit, racked with pain,
Joy will come to thee again!

When the storms so wildly sweep,
When the snows of sorrow creep
O'er the heart so thick and deep,

Lift your head, and brave the blast,
Though thy woes fall thick and fast,
Courage take - they will not last.

And when thou at length art free,
Purer, stronger thou shalt be,

For this stern adversity.

- MINNIE CURTIS WAIT.

GRANDMOTHER'S FENNEL

(Foeniculum)

When I was a tiny bit of a girl

In the country meeting-house, Where I expected to sit as still

As a frightened little mouse, Perhaps I did not relish the feast

Which the good old parson spread,
But I did enjoy my grandmother's treat
Of a fragrant fennel head.

I'm grandmother now, myself, you know,
But the dainty blue-eyed girl,

Who sits by my side in a city church

With her feathers all in a curl,

Will never know in her Greenaway gown
Exactly the joy I knew,

As I tasted the fresh sweet "meetin' seed,"
That in grandmother's garden grew.

FLAX FLOWERS

(Linum)

Blue as heaven, light as air,

All their slender stems can bear;

Nodding, swaying as they float,

Each one like a restless boat.

One would think they'd anchored there
Just to wait till winds are fair.

On their stems they tug and strain,
Longing to be off again.

If the winds that murmur sweet
Would but start the tiny fleet,

Surely their light keels could pass
Over seas of meadow grass;

Trees and bushes growing low,
Where the rippling wind does blow,

Over the waves of bold sunshine,
Down the moonbeams pale and fine.

From Harper's Magazine. Copyright, 1888, by Harper & Brothers.

Her eyes were as blue as the fairy flax,

Her cheeks like the dawn of day.

- LONGFELLOW.

THE FLOWER-DE-LUCE

(Iris)

Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers

Or solitary mere,

Or where the sluggish meadow brook delivers

Its waters to the weir!