Queen perchance of some great land
Whose kisses wait thy little hand.
Thou art come in right good time,
With the sweetest of the prime ;
With the green trees and the flowers,
Orchard blooms and sunny showers,
And the cuckoo and the bee,
And lark's angelic ecstasy,
And the bird that speaks delight
Into the close ear of night.

What a world, were human kind
All of one instructed mind!
What a world to rule, to please,
To share 'twixt enterprise and ease!
Graceful manners flowing round
From the court's enchanted ground,
Comfort keeping all secure,

None too rich, and none too poor.

Thee, meantime, fair child of one
Fit to see that golden sun,
Thee may no worse lot befall
Than a long life, April all ;
Fuller, much, of hopes than fears,
Kind in smiles and kind in tears,
Graceful, cheerful, ever new,

Heaven and earth both kept in view,
While the poor look up and bless
Thy celestial bounteousness.
And, when all thy days are done,
And sadness views thy setting sun,
Mayst thou greet thy mother's eyes,
And endless May in Paradise.

AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE.

How sweet it were, if without feeble fright,
Or dying of the dreadful beauteous sight,
An angel came to us, and we could bear
To see him issue from the silent air

At evening in our room, and bend on ours
His divine eyes, and bring us from his bowers
News of dear friends, and children who have never
Been dead indeed, as we shall know for ever.
Alas! we think not what we daily see
About our hearths,-angels, that are to be,
Or may be if they will, and we prepare
Their souls and ours to meet in happy air,-
A child, a friend, a wife whose soft heart sings
In unison with ours, breeding its future wings.

WEALTH AND WOMANHOOD.

HAVE you seen an heiress

In her jewels mounted,

Till her wealth and she seem'd one,
And she might be counted?

Have you seen a bosom

With one rose betwixt it?

And did you mark the grateful blush,

While the bridegroom fix'd it?

SONGS AND CHORUS OF THE FLOWERS.

ROSES.

WE are blushing Roses,

Bending with our fulness,
'Midst our close-capp'd sister buds
Warming the green coolness.

Whatsoe'er of beauty

Yearns and yet reposes,

Blush, and bosom, and sweet breath,
Took a shape in roses.

Hold one of us lightly,

See from what a slender

Stalk we bow'r in heavy blooms,
And roundness rich and tender.

Know you not our only

Rival flow'r-the human?
Loveliest weight on lightest foot,
Joy-abundant woman?

LILIES.

We are Lilies fair,

The flower of virgin light ; Nature held us forth, and said, "Lo! my thoughts of white."

Ever since then, angels

Hold us in their hands ;

You may see them where they take

In pictures their sweet stands.

Like the garden's angels

Also do we seem,

And not the less for being crown'd

With a golden dream.

Could you see around us

The enamour'd air,

You would see it pale with bliss
To hold a thing so fair.

VIOLETS.

We are violets blue,

For our sweetness found
Careless in the mossy shades,
Looking on the ground.

Love's dropp'd eyelids and a kiss,—
Such our breath and blueness is.

Io, the mild shape

Hidden by Jove's fears,

Found us first i' the sward, when she
For hunger stoop'd in tears.
"Wheresoe'er her lip she sets,"

Jove said, "be breaths call'd Violets."

SWEET-BRIAR.

Wild-rose, Sweet-briar, Eglantine,
All these pretty names are mine,
And scent in every leaf is mine,
And a leaf for all is mine,

And the scent-Oh, that's divine!
Happy-sweet and pungent-fine,
Pure as dew, and pick'd as wine.

As the rose in gardens dress'd
Is the lady self-possess'd,

I'm the lass in simple vest,

The country lass whose blood's the best.

Were the beams that thread the briar
In the morn with golden fire
Scented too, they'd smell like me,
All Elysian pungency.

POPPIES.

We are slumberous poppies,
Lords of Lethe downs,
Some awake, and some asleep,
Sleeping in our crowns.

What perchance our dreams may know,
Let our serious beauty show.

Central depth of purple,

Leaves more bright than rose,

Who shall tell what brightest thought

Out of darkest grows?

Who, through what funereal pain

Souls to love and peace attain ?

Visions aye are on us,

Unto eyes of power,

Pluto's alway-setting sun,

And Prosérpine's bower

:

There, like bees, the pale souls come

For our drink with drowsy hum.

Taste, ye mortals, also ;

Milky-hearted, we ;

Taste, but with a reverent care;
Active-patient be.

Too much gladness brings to gloom
Those who on the gods presume.*

* Opium is chiefly made from the white poppy; but the red is the one so much better known, that the writer has here made it stand for the whole genus.

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