NIGHT-BLOWING CEREUS.

Strange flower! oh, beautifully strange!
Why in the lonely night,
And to the quiet watching stars,

Spread'st thou thy petals white?

There's sleep among the breathing flowers,

The folded leaves all rest

Child, butterfly, and bee are hushed-
The wood-bird 's in its nest.-

.Thou wak'st alone of earth's bright things,
A silent watch is thine,

Offering thy incense, votive gift,
Unto night's starry shrine.

Morn glows, and thou art gone

As bow of summer cloud;

Like thy sister flower of Araby,*
Thou unto death hast bowed.

for aye,

Once flowering, wilt thou never more
Give thy pale beauty back?
O, canst thou not thy fragrance pour
Upon the sunbeam's track?

Thou flower of summer's starlit night,

When whispering farewell,

Bear'st thou a hope, from this dim world,

Mid brighter things to dwell?

Thou hast unsealed my thought's deep fount,
My hope as thine shall be,

And my heart's incense I will breathe
To Heaven, bright flower, with thee.

Anne Hope.

Gum Cestus of Arabia-which sheds its flowers as soon as they are blown.

THE CROCUS SOLILOQUY.

Down in my solitude under the snow,
Where nothing cheering can reach me—
Here, without light to see how to grow,
I'll trust to nature to teach me.

I will not despair, nor be idle, nor frown,
Locked in so gloomy a dwelling;

My leaves shall run up, and my roots shall run down,
While the bud in my bosom is swelling.

Soon as the frost will get out of my bed,
From this cold dungeon to free me,
I will peep up with my little bright head,
And all will be joyful to see me.

Then from my heart will young petals diverge,
As rays of the sun from their focus;

I from the darkness of earth will emerge,
A happy and beautiful Crocus.

Gayly arrayed in my yellow and green,
When to their view I have risen,
Will they not wonder how one so serene
Came from so dismal a prison?

Many, perhaps, from so simple a flower
This little lesson may borrow,-
Patient to-day, through its gloomiest hour,
We come out the brighter to-morrow.

Miss II. F. Gould.

TO A WITHERED ROSE.

Pale flower-pale, fragile, faded flower-
What tender recollections swell,
What thoughts of deep and thrilling power
Are kindled in thy mystic spell?

A charm is in thy faint perfume,
To call up visions of the past,

Which, through my mind's o'ershadowing gloom, 'Rush like the rare stars, dim and fast.’

And loveliest shines that evening hour,
More dear by time and sorrow made,

When thou wert culled, ('Love's token flower!')
And on my throbbing bosom laid.

Sweet thoughts and hallowed sympathies,
That shun the hours of worldly jar,
Unfold beneath the silent skies,

Like flowers that love the evening star.

And fancy, that, supine and duli,
Slumbers on folded wings all day,
Then waking, wild and beautiful,

Soars like the unprisoned bird away.

On eve's pale brow, one star burned bright,
Like heavenward hope, whose soothing dream

Is veiled from pleasure's dazzled sight,

To shine on sorrow's diadem.

A lingering halo in the west

Poured golden hues o'er tower and tree; But loveliest did its radiance rest,

With tenderest beam, sweet flower, on thee.

Bright as the tears thy beauty wept,
The dew-drops on thy petals lay,
Till evening's silver winds had swept
Thy cheek, and kissed them all away.

They waved the wild flowers on the hill,
And pilfered from their balmy store,
Caught freshness from the murmuring rill,
And sighed along its reedy shore.

But 't was not zephyrs fraught with balm,
Nor the rich bloom of evening skies,
Which lent that scene its deathless charm,
A well-spring of sweet memories.

It chanced that Love's wild wandering wing
A moment hovered near the earth,
Touched of my heart some trembling string,
And called the hidden music forth.

Earth hath not-oh! hath heaven so sweet
A charm as that once only known,
When first affection's accents greet
The ear that drinks their thrilling tone?

Alas! this pledge of early love—
Now emblem of its faded beam,
Seems the sole relic left to prove

That all was not a blissful dream.

Long years have passed, pale faded flower,
And life like thee hath lost its bloom;
But still the memory of that hour

Survives, like thine own faint perfume.

Oh, early love, too fair thou art

For earth-too beautiful and pureFast fade thy day-dreams from the heart, But all thy waking woes endure.

Mrs. Whitman.

TO THE HOUSTONIA CERULEA.

How often, modest flower,

I mark thy tender blossoms, where they spread
Along the turfy slope, their starry bed,
Hung with the heavy shower.

Thou comest in the dawn

Of Nature's promise, when the sod of May
Is speckled with its earliest array,

And strewest with bloom the lawn.

'Tis but a few brief days,

I saw the green hill in its fold of snow;
But now thy slender stems arise and blow,
In April's fitful rays.

I love thee, delicate

And humble as thou art; thy dress of white,
And blue, and all the tints where these unite,
Or wrapped in spiral plait.

Or to the glancing sun,

Shining through checkered cloud, and dewy shower,

Unfolding thy fair cross.

Thy blended colors run,

And meet in harmony,

Yes, tender flower,

Commingling like the rainbow tints; thy urn
Of yellow rises with a graceful turn,

And as a golden eye,

Its softly swelling throat

Shines in the centre of thy circle, where
Thy downy stigma rises slim and fair,
And catches, as they float,

A cloud of living air,

The atom seeds of fertilizing dust,
That hover, as thy lurking anthers burst.
And O! how purely there