But this bold floweret climbs the hill,
Hides in the forest, haunts the glen,
Stays on the margin of the rill,
Peeps round the fox's den.

Within the garden's cultured round
It shares the sweet carnation's bed;
And blooms in consecrated ground
In honour of the dead.

The lambkin crops its crimson gem, The wild-bee murmurs on its breast The blue-fly bends its pensile stem, Light o'er the skylark's nest.

'Tis Flora's page :-in every place,
In every season, fresh and fair,
It opens with perennial grace,
And blossoms every where.

On waste and woodland, rock and plain,
Its humble buds unheeded rise;

The rose has but a summer reign,
The daisy never dies.

TO THE SNOW-DROP.

BY KEBLE.

THOU first-born of the years' delight,
Pride of the dewy glade,
In vernal green and virgin white,
Thy vestal robes, array'd:

'Tis not because thy drooping form

Sinks grateful on its nest,

When chilly shades from gathering storm

Affright thy tender breast;

Nor from yon river islet wild

Beneath the willow spray,

Where, like the ringlets of a child,
Thou wear'st thy circle gay;

'Tis not for these I love thee dear,-
Thy shy averted smiles
To fancy bode a joyous year,
One of life's fairy isles.

They twinkle to the wintry moon,
And cheer the ungenial day,
And tell us all will glisten soon

As green and bright as they.

Is there a heart that loves the spring,
Their witness can refuse?

Yet mortals doubt, when angels bring
From heaven their Easter news:

When holy maids and matrons speak

Of Christ's forsaken bed,

And voices, that forbid to seek

The living 'mid the dead;

And when they say, "Turn, wandering hear "Thy Lord is risen indeed,

Let pleasure go, put care apart,

And to his presence speed;"

We smile in scorn: and yet we know
They early sought the tomb,

Their hearts that now so freshly glow,

Lost in desponding gloom.

They who have sought, nor hope to find,
Wear not so bright a glance:

They who have won their earthly mind,
Less reverently advance.

But where, in gentle spirits, fear

And joy so duly meet,

These sure have seen the angels near,

And kiss'd the Saviour's feet.

Nor let the pastor's thankful eye
Their faltering tale disdain,
As on their lowly couch they lie,
Prisoners of want and pain.

O guide us, when our faithless hearts
From thee would start aloof,
Where patience her sweet skill imparts
Beneath some cottage roof:

Revive our dying fires to burn
High as her anthems soar,
And of our scholars let us learn
Our own forgotten lore.

COWSLIPS.

BY MARY HOWITT.

NAY, tell me not of Austral flowers, Or purple bells from Persia's bowers, The cowslip of this land of ours,

Is dearer far to me!

This flower in other years I knew!
I know the field wherein it grew,
With violets white and violets blue,
Beneath the garden tree!

I never see these flowers but they
Send back my memory, far away,
To years long past, and many a day
Else perish'd long ago!

They bring my childhood's years again-
Our garden-fence, I see it plain,
With ficaries like a golden rain
Shower'd on the earth below.

A happy child, I leap, I run,

And memories come back, one by one,
Like swallows with the summer sun,
To their old haunts of joy!

A happy child, once more I stand,

With my kind sister, hand in hand,

And hear those tones, so sweet, so bland,
That never brought annoy!

I hear again my mother's wheel,
Her hand upon my head I feel;
Her kiss, which every grief could hea.,
Is on my cheek even now;

I see the dial overhead;

I see the porch o'er which was led,
The pyracantha green and red,
And jessamine's slender bough.

I see the garden-thicket's shade,
Where all the summer long we play'd,
And gardens set, and houses made,
Our early work and late;