TO A SNOW-DROP.

BY LANGHORNE.

POETS still, in graceful numbers,
May the glowing roses choose;
But the snow-drop's simple beauty
Better suits an humble muse.

Earliest bud that decks the garden,
Fairest of the fragrant race,
First-born child of vernal Flora,
Seeking mild thy lowly place;

Though no warm or murmuring zephyr Fan thy leaves with balmy wing, Pleased we hail thee, spotless blossom, Herald of the infant spring.

Through the cold and cheerless season Soft thy tender form expands,

Safe in unaspiring graces,

Foremost of the blooming bands.

White-robed flower, in lonely beauty,
Rising from a wintry bed;
Chilling winds, and blasts ungenial,
Rudely threat'ning round thy head.

Silv'ry bud, thy pensile foliage
Seems the angry blasts to fear;
Yet secure, thy tender texture
Ornaments the rising year.

No warm tints, or vivid colouring,
Paint thy bells with gaudy pride;
Mildly charm'd we seek thy fragrance,
Where no thorns insidious hide.

'Tis not thine, with flaunting beauty,
To attract the roving sight;
Nature from her varied wardrobe,
Chose thy vest of purest white.

White as falls the fleecy shower,
Thy soft form in sweetness grows;
Not more fair the valley's treasure,
Not more sweet her lily blows.

Drooping harbinger of Flora,

Simply are thy blossoms drest;

Artless as the gentle virtues

Mansion'd in the blameless breast.

When to pure and timid virtue

Friendship twines a votive wreath,

O'er the fair selected garland

Thou thy perfume soft shalt breathe.

TO THE PASSION-FLOWER.

BY BERNARD BARTON.

IF Superstition's baneful art
First gave thy mystic name,
Reason, I trust, would steel my heart
Against its groundless claim;

But if, in fancy's pensive hour,

By grateful feelings stirr'd,

Her fond imaginative power

That name at first conferr'd

Though lightly truth her flights may prize, By wild vagary driven,

For once their blameless exercise

May surely be forgiven.

We roam the seas-give new-found isles
Some king's or conqueror's name :
We rear on earth triumphant piles
As meeds of earthly fame :-

We soar to heaven; and to outlive
Our life's contracted span,
Unto the glorious stars we give
The names of mortal man:

Then may not one poor floweret's bloom
The holier memory share

Of Him, who, to avert our doom,
Vouchsafed our sins to bear?

God dwelleth not in temples rear'd
By work of human hands,
Yet shrines august, by men revered
Are found in Christian lands.

And may not e'en a simple flower
Proclaim His glorious praise,
Whose fiat, only, had the power
Its form from earth to raise ?

Then freely let thy blossom ope
Its beauties-to recall

A scene which bids the humble hope
In Him who died for all!

THE LILY OF THE VALLEY.

BY BISHOP MANT.

FAIR flower, that, lapt in lowly glade,
Dost hide beneath the greenwood shade,
Than whom the vernal gale

None fairer wakes, on bank, or spray,
Our England's lily of the May,

Our lily of the vale!

Art thou that "Lily of the field,"

Which, when the Saviour sought to shield

The heart from blank despair,

He show'd to our mistrustful kind,
An emblem of the thoughtful mind
Of God's paternal care?

Not this, I trow; for brighter shiro
To the warm skies of Palestine

Those children of the East:
There, when mild autumn's early rain
Descends on parch'd Esdrela's plain,
And Tabor's oak-girt crest,

More frequent than the host of night,
Those earth-born stars, as sages write,
Their brilliant disks unfold;