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,
Come, and bring forth unto the eye of day,

From their imprisoning and mysterious night,
The buds of many hues, the children of thy light.

Come, wondrous May!

For at the bidding of thy magic wand,
Quick from the caverns of the breathing land,
In all their green and glorious array

They spring, as spring the Persian maids to hail
Thy flushing footsteps in Cashmerian vale.

Come, vocal May!

Come with thy train, that high

On some fresh branch pour out their melody,
Or carolling thy praise, the live-long day,
Sit perched in some lone glen, on echo calling,
Mid murmuring woods, and musical waters falling.

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,
His light hath ceased to play on leaf and rill,
And twilight's footsteps hasten his decay;
Come with thy musings, and my heart shall be
Like a pure temple consecrate to thee.

Come, beautiful May!

Like youth and loveliness

Like her I love; oh, come in thy full dress,
The drapery of dark winter cast away;
To the bright eye, and the glad heart appear,
Queen of the spring and mistress of the year!

Yet, lovely May!

Teach her whose eye shall rest upon this rhyme
To spurn the gilded mockeries of time,

The heartless pomp that beckons to betray,
And keep as thou wilt find that heart each year,
Pure as thy dawn, and as thy sunset clear.

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,
To melt, and to sink unseen, or forgot?
And there will my course be ended?"
'Twas this a feathery Snow-Flake said,
As down through measureless space it stra
Or, as half by dalliance, half afraid,
It seemed in mid air suspended.

"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
ed in the lily, that decks the lea,
jessamine-bloom, the anemone,
ught of thy spotless whiteness:—

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,
Viola's mild blue eye shall weep,
emulous tear; or, a diamond, leap
drop from the unlocked fountain:
ving the valley, the meadow and heath,
reamlet, the flowers and all beneath,
and be wove in the silvery wreath
rcling the brow of the mountain.

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!"