"For flowers he rifles all the meads,

"For waking flowers-but thine forbears.

"Ah! waste no more that beauteous bloom
"On night's chill shade, that fragrant breath,
"Let smiling suns those gems illume!

"Fair flower, to live unseen is death."

Soft as the voice of vernal gales,

That o'er the bending meadow blow,

Or streams that steal through even vales,
And murmur that they move so slow:

Deep in her unfrequented bower,
Sweet Philomela pour'd her strain ;
The bird of eve approved her flower,

And answer'd thus the anxious swain :

Live unseen!

By moon-light shades, in valleys green,
Lovely flower, we'll live unseen.

Of our pleasures deem not lightly,

Laughing day may look more sprightly ;

But I love the modest mien,

Still I love the modest mien

Of gentle evening fair, and her star-trained queen.

Didst thou, shepherd, never find
Pleasure is of pensive kind?

Has thy cottage never known

That she loves to live alone?
Dost thou not at evening hour
Feel some soft and secret power,
Gliding o'er thy yielding mind,
Leave sweet serenity behind;

While, all disarm'd, the cares of day
Steal through the falling gloom away?

Love to think thy lot was laid

In this undistinguished shade.

Far from the world's infectious view,

Thy little virtues safely blew.

Go, and in day's more dangerous hour
Guard thy emblematic flower.

XLV

THE WALL-FLOWER.

LANGHORNE.

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!

3

"Come, lovely flower, my banks adorn,

Thus pity waked the tender thought,
And by her sweet persuasion led,
To seize the hermit-flower I sought,
And bear her from her stony bed.

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 undispersed by tempests there, "They rise in vegetable gold.

"Nor shall thy wonder wake to see
"Such desert 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 insulting 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,