THE ALMOND-TREE. BY MISS LANDON. FLEETING and falling, Its tomb wheresoever The wind may have borne The leaves and the blossoms Its roughness has torn. Some there are floating On yon fountain's breast,Some line the moss Of the nightingale's nest, Some are just strewn O'er the green grass below, And there they lie stainless As winter's first snow. Yesterday, on the boughs They hung scented and fair; To-day they are scatter'd The breeze best knows where. To-morrow those leaves Will be scentless and dead, For the kind to lament And the careless to tread. And is it not thus With each hope of the heart? With all its best feelings?Thus will they depart: They'll go forth to the world But what will be there ? False lights to deceive, False friends to delude, Till the heart in its sorrow's Left only to brood. Over feelings crush'd, chill'd, Sweet hopes ever flown; Like that tree when its green leaves And blossoms are gone. THE LILY. BY JAMES G. PERCIVAL. I HAD found out a sweet green spot Where a lily was blooming fair; The din of the city disturb'd it not; But the spirit that shades the quiet cot With its wings of love was there. I found that lily's bloom When the day was dark and chill: I sat by the lily's bell, And watch'd it many a day The leaves, that rose in a flowing swell, Grew faint and dim, then droop'd and fell, And the flower had flown away. I look'd where the leaves were laid, In withering paleness, by; And as gloomy thoughts stole on me, said, There's many a sweet and blooming maid Who will soon as dimly die. THE MARYGOLD. BY G. WITHERS. WHEN with a serious musing, I behold Still bending tow'rds him her small slender stalk; mourns, Bedew'd as 'twere with tears, till he returns; And how she veils her flowers when he is gone, As if she scorned to be look'd upon By an inferior eye; or did contemn To wait upon a meaner light than him: Wherewith we court these earthly things below Oh! keep the morning of his incarnation, THE LILY. BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. THE stream with languid murmur creeps In Lumin's flow'ry vale: Beneath the dew the lily weeps, 66 Slow waving to the gale. Cease, restless gale!" it seems to say "Nor wake me with thy sighing! The honours of my vernal day On rapid wings are flying. "To-morrow shall the traveller come 10 |