THE ALMOND.TREE.

BY MISS LANDON.

FLEETING and falling,

Where is the bloom
Of yon fair Almond-tree ?

It is sunk in the tomb.

Its tomb wheresoever

The wind may have borne The leaves and the blossoms

Its roughnegs 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

On the wings of the air,
Rejoicing and hoping ;

But what will be there ?

False lights to deceive,

False friends to delude,
Till the heart in its sortow'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 :

It smiled like a star in a misty gloom,

And it sent abroad a sweet perfume, Which is floating around me still.

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
The grateful and obsequious Marygold,
How duly, every morning, she displays
Her open breast when Phæbus spreads his rays;
How she observes him in his daily walk,
Still bending tow'rds him her small slender stalk ;
How, when he down declines, she droops and

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:
When this I meditate, methinks the flowers
Have spirits far more generous than ours,
And give us fair examples to despise
The servile fawnings and idolatries
Wherewith we court these earthly things below
Which merit not the service we bestow,
But O, my God! though grovelling I appear
Upon the ground, and have a rooting here
Which hales me downward, yet in my desire
To that which is above me I aspire,
And all my best affections I profess
To Him that is the Sun of Righteousness.

Oh! keep the morning of his incarnation,
The burning noon-tide of his bitter passion,
The night of his descending, and the height
Of his ascension,-ever in my sight,
That, imitating him in what I may,
I never follow an inferior way.

THE LILY.

BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

The stream with languid murmur creeps

In Lumin's flow'ry vale: Beneath the dew the lily weeps,

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

Who late beheld me blooming ; His searching eye shall vainly roam

The dreary vale a: Lumin."