THE USE OF FLOWERS.

GOD might have bade the earth bring forth
Enough for great and small,

The oak-tree and the cedar-tree,
Without a flower at all.

We might have had enough, enough
For every want of ours,
For luxury, medicine, and toil,

And yet have had no flowers.

The ore within the mountain mine
Requireth none to grow;

Nor doth it need the lotus-flower
To make the river flow.

The clouds might give abundant rain,
The nightly dews might fall,
And the herb that keepeth life in man
Might yet have drunk them all.

And wherefore, wherefore were they made,
All dyed with rainbow-light,
All fashioned with supremest grace,
Upspringing day and night;-

Springing in valleys green and low,
And on the mountains high,

And in the silent wilderness

Where no man passes by?

Our outward life requires them not

Then wherofore had they birth?

To minister delight to man,

To beautify the earth;

To comfort man to whisper hope,
Whene'er his faith is dim,

For who so careth for the flowers,
Will much more care for him!

SUNSHINE.

I LOVE the sunshine everywhere, —
In wood, and field, and glen;

I love it in the busy haunts

Of town-imprisoned men.

I love it when it streameth in

The humble cottage door

And casts the checkered casement shade Upon the red-brick floor.

I love it where the children lie

Deep in the clovery grass,

To watch among the twining roots

The gold-green beetles pass.

I love it on the breezy sea,

To glance on sail and oar, While the great waves, like molten glass, Come leaping to the shore.

I love it on the mountain-tops,

Where lies the thawless snow, And half a kingdom, bathed in light, Lies stretching out below.

And when it shines in forest-glades,
Hidden, and green, and cool,

Through mossy boughs and veined leaves,
How is it beautiful!

How beautiful on little stream,

When sun and shade at play, Make silvery meshes, while the brook Goes singing on its way.

How beautiful, where dragon-flies
Are wondrous to behold,
With rainbow wings of gauzy pearl,
And bodies blue and gold!

How beautiful, on harvest slopes,
To see the sunshine lie!

Or on the paler reaped fields,

Where yellow shocks stand high!

Oh, yes! I love the sunshine!

Like kindness or like mirth

Upon a human countenance,

Is sunshine on the earth'

Upon the earth; upon the sea;
And through the crystal air,

Or piled-up cloud; the gracious sun
Is glorious everywhere!

THE CHILD AND THE FLOWERS.

PUT up thy work, dear mother;

Dear mother come with me, For I've found within the garden, The beautiful sweet-pea!

And rows of stately hollyhocks
Down by the garden-wall,

All yellow, white, and crimson,
So many-hued and tall!

And bending on their stalks, mother,
Are roses white and red;
And pale-stemmed balsams all a-blow,
On every garden-bed.

Put up thy work, I pray thee,

And come out, mother dear! We used to buy these flowers, But they are growing here'

Oh, mother! little Amy

Would have loved these flowers to see ;Dost remember how we tried to get

For her a pink sweet-pea?

Dost remember how she loved

Those rose-leaves pale and sere

I wish she had but lived to see
The lovely roses here!

Put up thy work, dear mother,
And wipe those tears away

And come into the garden
Before 'tis set of day!

CHILDHOOD.

Он, when I was a little child,
My life was full of pleasure,
I had four-and-twenty living things,
And many another treasure.

But chiefest was my sister dear,
Oh, how I loved my sister!

I never played at all with joy,
If from my side I missed her.