Should beauty's soul-enchanting smile,
Love-kindling looks and features gay,
Should these thy wandering eye beguile,
And steal thy wareless heart away;
That heart shall soon with sorrow swell,
And soon the erring eye deplore,
If in the beauteous bosom dwell
No gentle virtue's genial store.
Far from his hive one summer-day,
A young and yet unpractis'd bee,
Borne on his tender wings away,

Went forth the flowery world to see.
The morn, the noon, in play he pass'd,
But when the shades of evening came,
No parent brought the due repast,
And faintness seiz'd his little frame.

By nature urg'd, by instinct led,

The bosom of a flower he sought,
Where streams mourn'd round a mossy bed,
And Violets all the bank enwrought.

Of kindred race, but brighter dies,
On that fair bank a Pansy grew,
That borrow'd from indulgent skies
A velvet shade and purple hue.

The tints that stream'd with glossy gold,
The velvet shade, the purple hue,

The stranger wonder'd to behold,
And to its beauteous bosom flew.

Not fonder haste the lover speeds,
At evening's fall his fair to meet,
When o'er the hardly-bending meads
He springs on more than mortal feet.

Nor glows his eyes with brighter glee,
When stealing near her orient breast;
Than felt the fond enamour'd bee,

When first the golden bloom he prest.
Ah! pity much his youth untried,
His heart in beauty's magic spell!
So never passion thee betide,

But where the genial virtues dwell.
In vain he seeks those virtues there;
No soul-sustaining charms abound:
No honey'd sweetness to repair

The languid waste of life is found.

An aged bee, whose labours led

Through those fair springs, and meads of gold, His feeble wing, his drooping head Beheld, and pitied to behold.

6 Fly, fond adventurer, fly the art

That courts thine eye with fair attire ; Who smiles to win the heedless heart, Will smile to see that heart expire.

This modest flower of humbler hue, That boasts no depth of glowing dies, Array'd in unbespangled blue,

The simple clothing of the skies

This flower, with balmy sweetness blest,
May yet thy languid life renew:'-
He said, and to the Violet's breast
The little vagrant faintly flew.

'Then may each justly vengeful flower
Pursue her Queen with generous strife,
Nor leave the hand of lawless power
Such compass on the scale of life.
'One simple virtue all my pride!
The wish that flies to misery's aid;

The balm that stops the crimson tide,*
And heals the wounds that war has made.”

Their free consent by zephyrs borne,

The flowers their Meadow's Queen obey; And fairer blushes crown'd the morn, And sweeter fragrance fill'd the day.

THE WALL-FLOWER.

'WHY loves my flower, the sweetest flower
That swells the golden breast of May,
Thrown rudely o'er this ruin'd tower,
To waste her solitary day?

'Why, when the mead, the spicy vale,
The grove and genial garden call,
Will she her fragrant soul exhale,
Unheeded on the lonely wall?
For never sure was beauty born
To live in Death's deserted shade!
Come, lovely flower, my banks adorn,

My banks for life and beauty made.'
Thus Pity wak'd the tender thought,
And by her sweet persuasion led,
To seize the hermit-flower I sought,
And bear her from her stony bed.

* The property of that flower.

I sought-but sudden on mine ear
A voice in hollow murmurs broke,
And smote my heart with holy fear-
The Genius of the Ruin spoke.
'From thee be far the' ungentle deed,
The honours of the dead to spoil,
Or take the sole remaining meed,

The flower that crowns their former toil! 'Nor deem that flower the garden's foe, Or fond to grace this barren shade; 'Tis Nature tells her to bestow

Her honours on the lonely dead.

'For this, obedient zephyrs bear

Her light seeds round yon turret's mold,
And undispers'd by tempests there
They rise in vegetable gold.

'Nor shall thy wonder wake to see

Such desart-scenes distinction crave;
Oft have they been, and oft shall be
Truth's, Honour's, Valour's, Beauty's grave.
'Where longs to fall that rifted spire,
As weary of the' in sulting air;
The poet's thought, the warrior's fire,
The lover's sighs are sleeping there.
'When that too shakes the trembling ground,
Borne down by some tempestuous sky,
And many a slumbering cottage round
Startles how still their hearts will lie;
'Of them who, wrapt in earth so cold,
No more the smiling day shall view,
Should many a tender tale be told;

For many a tender thought is due.
VOL. XXX.
M

Hast thou not seen some lover pale,
When Evening brought the pensive hour,
Step slowly oe'r the shadowy vale,

And stop to pluck the frequent flower?
Those flowers he surely meant to strew
On lost Affection's lowly cell;
Though there, as fond remembrance grew,
Forgotten, from his hand they fell.
'Has not for thee the fragrant thorn
Been taught her first rose to resign?
With vain but pious fondness borne
To deck thy Nancy's honour'd shrine!
'Tis Nature pleading in the breast,
Fair memory of her works to find;
And when to fate she yields the rest,
She claims the monumental mind.
Why, else, the o'ergrown paths of Time
Would thus the letter'd sage explore,
With pain these crumbling ruins climb,
And on the doubtful sculpture pore?
'Why seeks he with unwearied toil
Through Death's dim walks to urge his way,
Reclaim his long-asserted spoil,

And lead Oblivion into day?

'Tis Nature prompts, by toil or fear

Unmov'd, to range through Death's domain

The tender parent loves to hear

Her children's story told again.

Treat not with scorn his thoughtful hours,
If haply near these haunts he stray;
Nor take the fair enlivening flowers
That bloom to cheer his lonely way?