TO MAY. BY JONATHAN LAWRENCE, JR. COME, gentle May! Come with thy robe of flowers, Come with thy sun and sky, thy clouds and showers, From their imprisoning and mysterious night, Come, wondrous May! For at the bidding of thy magic wand, They spring, as spring the Persian maids to hail Come, vocal May! Come with thy train, that high On some fresh branch pour out their melody, TO MAY. 149 Come, sunny May! Come with thy laughing beam, What time the lazy mist melts on the stream, Or seeks the mountain-top to meet thy ray, Ere yet the dew-drop on thine own soft flower, Hath lost its light or died beneath his power. Come, holy May! When sunk behind the cold and western hill, Come, beautiful May! Like youth and loveliness Like her I love; oh, come in thy full dress, Yet, lovely May! Teach her whose eye shall rest upon this rhyme The heartless pomp that beckons to betray, As fade thy beauties, all the vanity Of this world's pomp, then teach, tha In his short winter, bury beauty's frame, In fairer worlds the soul shall break h Another spring shall bloom eternal and t THE SNOW-FLAKI BY HANNAH F. GOULD. "Now, if I fall, will it be my lot To be cast in some lone, and lowly spot, "Oh! no," said the Earth, "thou shalt not Neglected and lone on my lap to die, Thou pure and delicate child of the sky! For thou wilt be safe in my keeping, vive, when the sunbeams are yellow and warm, - the flowers from my bosom are peeping! then thou shalt have thy choice, to be lt, and be cast in a glittering bead, the pearls, that the night scatters over the mead, cup where the bee and the fire-fly feed, aining thy dazzling brightness. t thee awake from thy transient sleep, wouldst thou return to a home in the skies! ne in the Iris I'll let thee arise, pear in the many and glorious dyes encil of sunbeams is blending! And never regret descending!" "Then I will drop," said the trusting F "But, bear it in mind, that the choice I Is not in the flowers, nor the dew to wa Nor the mist that shall pass with the For, things of thyself, they will die with But those that are lent from on high, like Must rise, and will live, from thy dust se To the regions above returning. "And if true to thy word and just thou a Like the spirit that dwells in the holiest h Unsullied by thee, thou wilt let me depart And return to my native heaven. For I would be placed in the beautiful Bow From time to time, in thy sight to glow; So thou may'st remember the Flake of Sn By the promise that God hath given!" |