LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. TEACH thee their language? sweet, I know no tongue, When tenderness as yet within the world was new. And still how oft their soft and starry eyes- [ing, Now bent to earth, to heaven now mutely pleadTheir incense fainting as it seeks the skies, Yet still from earth with freshening hope receding, How often these to every heart declare, With all the silent eloquence of truth The language that they speak is Nature's prayer, To give her back those spotless days of youth. SERENADE. SLEEPING! why now sleeping? The moon herself looks gay, While through thy lattice peeping, Wilt not her call obey? Wake, love, each star is keeping For thee its brightest ray; And languishes the gleaming Athwart the dewy spray. But if of me thou'rt dreaming, Sleep, loved one, while you may; And music's wings shall hover Softly thy sweet dreams over, Fanning dark thoughts away, While, dearest, 'tis thy lover Who'll bid each bright one stay. TO AN AUTUMN ROSE. TELL her I love her-love her for those eyes Reveal two heavens here to us on earth- And that wherein such soulfulness has birth: Go to my lady ere the season flies, And the rude winter comes thy bloom to blastGo! and with all of eloquence thou hast, The burning story of my love discover, And if the theme should fail, alas! to move her, Tell her when youth's gay summer-flowers are past, Like thee, my love will blossom to the last! WHERE DOST THOU LOITER, SPRING? WHERE dost thou loiter, spring, Whilst it behoveth Thee to cease wandering Where'er thou roveth, And to my lady bring The flowers she loveth? Where founts are gushing; Through its leaves peepeth. WRITTEN IN SPRING-TIME. THOU wak'st again, () Earth, And, laughing at the sun, Thy waters leap! Thou wak'st again, O Earth, And who by fireside hearth Spring first did reign. Thou wak'st again, O Earth! Freshly and new, As when at Spring's first birth Though youth be gone. Wake thee! and ere in death One leaf alone! NOT hers the charms which LAURA's lover drew, For round her mouth there play'd, at times, a smile, What though that smile might beam alike on all; power, Your homage but the pastime of the hour, Now beam'd her beauty in resistless light, Hope, cheated too often, when life's in its spring, i DREAM. YOUNG LESBIA slept. Her glowing cheek Of playing with his bow and arrows, And nestle with his mother's sparrows. Young LESBIA slept-and visions gay Before her dreaming soul were glancing, Like sights that in the moonbeams show, When fairies on the green are dancing. And, first, amid a joyous throng She seem'd to move in festive measure, With many a courtly worshipper, That waited on her queenly pleasure. And then, by one of those strange turns That witch the mind so when we 're dreaming, She was a planet in the sky, And they were stars around her beaming. Yet hardly had that lovely light (To which one cannot here help kneeling) Its radiance in the vault above Been for a few short hours revealing, When, like a blossom from the bough, By some remorseless whirlwind riven, "Twas back to earth like lightning driven. That were but now with their own twining. And, half with pique, and half with pain, To be from that gay chorus parting, Young LESBIA from her dream awoke, With swelling heart and tear-drop starting. INTERPRETATION. Had she but thought of those below, Who thus were left with breasts benighted, Till Heaven dismiss'd that star to earth, By which alone our hearts are lighted— Or, had she recollected, when Each virtue from the world departed, How Hope, the dearest came again, And stay'd to cheer the lonely-hearted: Sweet LESBIA Could not thus have grieved, From that cold, dazzling throng to sever, And yield her warm, young heart again To those that prize its worth forever. MRS. SEBA SMITH. [Born about 1806.] THE subject of this notice was born in a rural village near the city of Portland. From her early years she has delighted in the study of philosophy, in abstruse speculations, and curious science, and she is probably more familiar with the best English literature than any American poet of her sex, except the author of "Zophiel." When but sixteen years old-a child in heart and in age-she was married to Mr. SEBA SMITH, a counsellor at law, then of Portland, and now of New York. She began to write for the literary periodicals at an early age; and all her compositions, in prose and verse, have been carefully finished. Her style is simple and elegant, her illustrations felicitously chosen, and her verses have meaning as well as melody. Her longest poem is "The Sinless Child," published in the "Southern Literary Messenger" for March, 1842. Her heroine is a widow's fair-haired girl, of dove-like gentleness: Every insect dwelt secure When she in greenwood stray'd. The winding vine its tendrils wove And, by the flickering light, the leaves Here the daughter, as As the widow and her child walk in the twilight, the first sees in the jagged limbs spreading above her Spectres and distorted shapes, That frown upon her path, And mock her with their hideous eyes : To freedom, truth, and inward light, But EVA, like a dreamer waked, Look'd off upon the hill, And mutter'd words of strange, sweet sound, Ethereal forms with whom she talk'd, Unseen by all beside; And she, with earnest looks, besought She says to her mother E'en now I mark'd a radiant throng, To cheer with hope the trembling heart, The meek-eyed violets smiling bowed- To scent the evening sky. They kiss'd the rose in love and mirth, A shower of pearly dust they brought, A host flew o'er the mowing field, And bathed the stately forest-tree, I saw a meek-eyed angel curve And bless with one soft kiss the urn, Another rock'd the young bird's nest, As high on a branch it hung, Each and all, as its task is done, Bearing aloft some treasured gift— An offering to GOD on high. They bear the breath of the odorous flower, And thus they add to the holy joys At length the child fulfils her destiny. The widow, alarmed by her long absence one morning, seeks her, and finds her dead. Why raises she the small, pale hand, To meet her dizzy sight. She holds the mirror to her lips So sweet its lingering smile, To show us that our world should be The vestibule of heaven. Did we but in the holy light Of truth and goodness rise, We might communion hold with GoD And spirits from the skies. The poem is in seven short cantos, and the verses I have quoted convey an idea of its style and character. THE ACORN. AN acorn fell from an old oak tree, And lay on the frosty ground "O, what shall the fate of the acorn be?" Was whisper'd all around, By low-toned voices, chiming sweet, Like a floweret's bell when swungAnd grasshopper steeds were gathering fleet, And the beetle's hoofs up-rung For the woodland Fays came sweeping past Where the forest-leaves were falling fast, For life is holy mystery, Where'er it is conceal'd. They came with gifts that should life bestow: The bane that should work its deadly wo- In the gray moss-cup was the mildew brought, But it needed not; for a blessed fate Was the acorn's doom'd to be The spirits of earth should its birth-time wait, And watch o'er its destiny. To a little sprite was the task assign'd To bury the acorn deep, Away from the frost and searching wind, When they through the forest sweep. I laugh'd outright at the small thing's toil, A thimble's depth it was scarcely deep, In the hush of dropping dew. The spring-time came with its fresh, warm air, Then softly the black earth turn'd aside, And up, where the last year's leaf was dried, With coiled stem, and a pale green hue, Then deeply its roots abroad it threw, Its strength from the earth to bring. The young child pass'd with a careless tread, He little knew, as he started back, How the acorn's fate was hung On the very point in the spider's track Where the web on his cheek was flung. The autumn came, and it stood alone, And bow'd as the wind pass'd by- A schoolboy beheld the lithe young shoot, Then idly cast away. His hand was stay'd; he knew not why: "T was a presence breathed aroundA pleading from the deep-blue sky, And up from the teeming ground. It told of the care that lavish'd had been Of the many things that had wrought a screen It told of the oak that once had bow'd, But now, when the storm was raging loud, There's a deeper thought on the schoolboy's brow, And he ponders much, as with footsteps slow Up grew the twig, with a vigour bold, And the damp moss crept from the earthy floor The young oak grew, and proudly grew, For its roots were deep and strong; And a shadow broad on the earth it threw, And the sunlight linger'd long On its glossy leaf, where the flickering light Was flung to the evening sky; And the wild bird came to its airy height, And taught her young to fly. In acorn-time came the truant boy, With a wild and eager look, And he mark'd the tree with a wondering joy, The solemn shadow the huge tree threw, And vague-like fears the boy surround, In the shadow of that tree; So growing up from the darksome ground, His heart beats quick to the squirrel's tread On the wither'd leaf and dry, In its vigour and its pride; A monarch own'd in the solemn wood, Or rock in the summer breeze; And a thousand years it firmly grew, And, mighty in strength, its broad arms threw It grew where the rocks were bursting out Where the ocean's roar, and the sailor's shout, Were mingled in wild turmoil— Where the far-off sound of the restless deep Then its huge limbs creak'd in the midnight air, For it loved the storm and the lightning's glare, The bleaching bones of the sea-bird's prey And the stout ship, saved from the ocean-grave, Change came to the mighty things of earth- Of the generations that had birth, O Death! where, where were they? Yet fresh and green the brave oak stood, Nor dream'd it of decay, Though a thousand times in the autumn wood Its leaves on the pale earth lay. A sound comes down in the forest trees, It floats far off on the summer breeze, Lo! the monarch tree no more shall stand Like a watch-tower of the main The strokes fall thick from the woodman's hand, The stout live oak !-'T was a worthy tree, And he smiled its angled limbs to see, She sits on the rocks, the skeleton ship, Looks round with strange amaze, Are mingling in that gaze. With graceful waist and carvings brave Where it plunged in foam and spray : Thou wert nobly rear'd, O heart of oak! And how wilt thou in the storm rejoice, With the wind through spar and shroud, To hear a sound like the forest voice, When the blast was raging loud! With snow-white sail, and streamer gay, In sunshine or dark midnight: On, on she goes, where the icebergs roll, Where meteors flash by the northern pole, Where the glittering light is backward flung And the frozen shrouds are gayly hung With gems from the ocean foam. On the Indian sea was her shadow cast, And her pendant shroud and towering mast As the spicy breeze went by, |