COLUMBINE .

Folly of old, with gay deceit,
When Love was seeking Virtue's bower,
Led the bright boy to Beauty's feet;
And she, in that one fatal hour,
Enwove a chain so strong, so fair,
It bound them both for ever there!

BLUE-BOTTLE CENTAURY

Her love is pure and glad and true,
As yonder heaven of stainless blue.

NETTLE .

More cruel far than murder's self is he,
Who, having kindled once love's Eden-bloom,
With warm Persuasion's spell, in some young heart,
E'er lets Indifference blight it or Neglect; —
For Love — true Love can flower but once in life,
In woman's life — the Aloe of her heart!

Her eyes are fixed on the village street,
And his on the sky-girt sea —
But oh, her heart leaps after his ship
And his at home would be!

But he must fight with the strangling gale
Or run with the singing breeze,
While she sits, hiding a hungered love
And dreading the empty seas.

As Cupid , from his Cruel Sport,
Return'd, to Grace his Mother's Court,
In Triumph leading Bleeding Hearts,
Throbbing with Love, transfix'd with Darts;
Himself untouch'd! the Hunter stray'd
Into a Cooling, Myrtle Shade,
And saw a Lonely, Lovely Maid.

No sooner did young Master spy
The Virgin's soft, refulgent Eye,
Than did his Opening Breast receive
A Wound, like Those, He, often, gave;
And, down his Arms and Hearts He threw,
And languishing, full, in her View,
'Tis done! He said, See! Mars , see! Jove ,

I saw, I saw the lovely child,
I watched her by the way,
I learnt her gestures sweet and wild,
Her loving eyes and gay.

Her name? — I heard not, nay, nor care, —
Enough it was for me
To find her innocently fair
And delicately free.

Oh cease and go ere dreams be done,
Nor trace the angel's birth,
Nor find the Paradisal one
A blossom of the earth!

Thus is it with our subtlest joys, —
How quick the soul's alarm!
How lightly deed or word destroys
That evanescent charm!

My sweet girl is lying still
In her lovely atmosphere,
The gentle hopes her blue veins fill
With pure silver, warm and clear.

O, see her hair, O, mark her breast,
Would it not, O! comfort thee,
If thou could'st nightly go to rest
By that virgin chastity.

Dearest, a look is but a ray
Reflected in a certain way;
A word, whatever tone it wear,
Is but a trembling wave of air;
A touch, obedience to a clause
In nature's pure material laws.

The very flowers that bend and meet,
In sweetening others, grow more sweet;
The clouds by day, the stars by night,
Inweave their floating locks of light;
The rainbow, Heaven's own forehead's braid,
Is but the embrace of sun and shade.

How few that love us have we found!
How wide the world that girds them round!

1.

Ah, the symmetry how dainty
Of the limbs uprearing slender!
On the little neck, how charming
Of the lovely head the poise is!

Half alluring, half pathetic
Is the face, whereon the glances
Of a woman mingle warmly
With a child's unsullied laughter.

Were there not upon thy shoulders
Here and there, like sombre shadows,
Of the dust of earth some traces,
I should liken thee to Venus —

To the goddess Aphrodite,
Rising lovely from the ocean,
Sweetly blooming, fair and shining,
And, I need not mention, clean.

I

From his far isle the gentle stranger came
Who taught our lips to love his liquid name,
Found a new home beneath our western sky
Won all our hearts and left us but to die.