Myriads of flowers are starting from their tomb-
Man's dwelling-place is filled with fragrant bloom.
What were his dwelling-place on this wide earth
If flowers through God's kind love, had not their birth?
Vestige of Eden, sin's hands never held.
The fringe on labor's garment sewn of eld.
When man from that fair Garden turned to go
With the companion of his new-found woe,
Methinks the Angel standing at the gate,
In tender pity for their cruel fate,

Bade Earth still give them year by year her flowers,
To 'mind them 'mid their toil of Eden's bowers.

THE SCULPTOR'S CHOICE.

The Sculptor stood and gazed upon his clay.
What shall I make of thee?

And in his mind such visions rose

As Mahomet's followers see

In opium dreams of future ecstasy.

Eyes like the Syren's, that could vivify

Even the marble cold,

Forms that could make the saint's high visions fly, Did his rapt fancy hold;

Tresses the Painter's art would bathe in gold.

But with the Syren's eyes looked forth a glance
That bore the slime of sin !

And waving to betray, those tresses dance

From every mesh within!

His outstretched hand dare not the task begin.

For shining on him from his early days

Two pure eyes met his own—

Guileless as violets in the woodland ways,

When spring around has thrown

The sweetest garlands that she calls her own.

Ah, no! no lasting beauty dwells with sin,
Whate'er her charms may be !

To model vice no honors would I win-
My aim be Purity!

For in those eyes I loved, her face I see.

THE SUMMER MEADOW.

I gazed on the summer meadow;
It wore a robe of blue

With tiny stars besprinkled,

That seemed of Heaven's own hue.

And I said "O summer meadow,

How fair is your robe of blue !"

I gazed on the summer meadow;
It wore a robe of gold,
So bright, without a shadow-

'Twas such as we can hold Without a wrong or heart-burnThat beautiful robe of gold.

I looked on the summer meadow,
Covered with summer snow,
Where with golden eyes a twinkling
The daisies were aglow ;

And their playmates gay, the breezes,
Did chase them to and fro.

I looked on the summer meadow
And saw the sharp scythe pass;
And the blue and gold and daisies
Were dying 'mid the grass.
Now I hear the summer breezes
Go sighing as they pass.

ALONE.

Alone! O weary word and weary thought;

Has one more sad across man's path been thrown Than this, with tearful memories inwrought.

Alone-Alone?

Amid earth's companies to hold no tie-
No one the heart can gather as its own;
To miss the glance that made our sympathy;
This is to be alone.

To miss the eyes that made all trials sweet-
Listen in vain for the remembered tone-
Look in strange eyes the olden glance to greet-
And find ourselves alone!

When Nature lays her flowers in our hand,

No one comes near, to smile when they are shown; The fairest blossoms from the tropic's land

Fade as we gaze alone.

So walk we on our lonely, weeping way,
Nor heed his kindly presence, oft unknown,
The Man of Sorrows, seeking day by day
To make His peace our own.

O Man of Sorrows! what our feeble woes

To that deep, whelming grief thy soul has known? We weep-for Thou didst weep-and find repose, And make thy peace our own.

HALF MAST.

Half mast! a soul has left this weary world,
Rather on high with the full flag unfurled!
Far, far above our mortal sense, a voice

Doth say to listening ears, "Rejoice! Rejoice!"

Half mast for sin ! that tells of living death.

Half mast for blasphemy's God-given breath! Half mast where lust, unshamed its victim kills! Half mast where man the poisoned draught distils.

Half mast where man, earth's plenty hoards for gain, And sees earth's starving children beg in vain!

Or chains God's image to a life of toil,

And riots on the product of sins' spoil!

Half mast for these! but where a soul has sped,
Joy for the living! sorrow for the dead-

The dead who walk earth's ways and thinking live,
Amid the pleasures sense and sin can give.

Half mast for guilt! and let a nation mourn
Integrity that never may return;

But when a good man leaves this sinful world,
Lift up the flag with every fold unfurled !

THE SOUL'S COTTAGE.

"The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,

Lets in the light through chinks that Time has made."

Poor Cottage! far beyond repairs;
Dim are the windows, loose the stairs.
The Soul no more looks brightly forth
Upon the lovely things of earth;
The golden tints its childhood knew
Are tarnished, fading, in their hue.
The sounds of earth are faintly heard,
From breaking waves, to singing bird.
Oft unperceived the human voice
That bade its earlier hours rejoice.

Poor Cottage! far beyond repairs !

We come upon it unawares.

Mark where Time's storms have rudely beat—

The shaking head, the tott'ring feet,

The thatchless roof, the furrows deep;
For who that lives, but knows to weep?
Ah! what shall all this waste repay,