But thou art emblem of the friend,

Who, whatsoe'er our lot,

The balm of faithful love will lend
And, true and constant to the end,
May die, but alters not.

THE HALF-BLOWN ROSE.

BY DANIEL.

Look, now, now we esteem the half-blown rose, The image of thy blush and summer's honour;

Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclose

That full of beauty time bestows upon her.

No sooner spreads her glories to the air,

But straight her wide-blown pomp comes to

decline;

She then is scorn'd that late adorn'd the fair;
So fade the roses of those cheeks of thine.
No April can revive thy wither'd flowers,

Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now; Swift, speedy time, feather'd with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow: Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain, But love now whilst thou mayst be loved again.

TO THE DAISY.

BY WORDSWORTH.

IN youth from rock to rock I went
From hill to hill in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,

Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And nature's love of thee partake,
Her much-loved daisy!

Thee winter in the garland wears
That thinly decks his few gray hairs

Spring parts the clouds with softest airs;
That she may sun thee;

Whole summer-fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy wight
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.

Be violets in their secret mews

The flowers the wanton zephyrs choose; Proud be the rose, with rains and dews Her head impearling;

Thou livest with less ambitious aim,
Yet hast not gone without thy flame;
Thou art indeed, by many a claim,
The poet's darling.

If to a rock from rains we fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprison'd by hot sunshine lie
Near the green holly,

And wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look about, and there
Thou art!-a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couch'd an hour,
Have I derived from thy sweet power
Some apprehension;

Some steady love; some brief delight;
Some memory that had taken flight;
Some chime or fancy wrong or right;
Or strong invention.

If stately passions in me burn,

And one chance look to thee should turn,

I drink out of an humble urn

A lowlier pleasure;

The homely sympathy that heeds

The common life, our nature breeds;

A wisdom fitted to the needs

Of hearts at leisure.

Fresh smitten by thy morning ray,
When thou art up, alert and gay,
Then, cheerful flower! my spirits play
With kindred gladness:

And when, at dusk, by dews opprest,
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest
Hath often eased my pensive breast
Of careful sadness.

And all day long I number yet,
All seasons through, another debt,
Which I, wherever thou art met,

To thee am owing;

An instinct call it, a blind sense

A happy, genial influence,

Coming one knows not how, nor whence,

Nor whither going.

Child of the year! that round dost run

Thy pleasant course,-when day's begun,

As ready to salute the sun

As lark or leveret,

Thy long-lost praise* thou shalt regain;

Nor be less dear to future men

Than in old time;-thou not in vain

Art nature's favourite.

See, in Chaucer and the elder poets, the honours formerly paid to this flower.

LOVE'S WREATH.

BY MOORE.

WHEN Love was a child, and went idling round
Among flowers the whole summer's day,
One morn in the valley a bower he found,
So sweet, it allured him to stay.

Q'erhead from the trees hung a garland fair,
A fountain ran darkly beneath;

'Twas Pleasure that hung the bright flowers ur 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; And though it all sunny appears

With Pleasure's own lustre, each leaf, they say, Still tastes of the fountain of tears.