THE LILY.

How wither'd, perish'd, seems the form
Of yon obscure, unsightly root!
Yet from the blight of wintry storm,
It hides secure the precious fruit.

The careless eye can find no grace,
No beauty in the scaly folds,
Nor see within the dark embrace
What latent loveliness it holds.

Yet in that bulb, those sapless scales,
The lily wraps her silver vest,
'Till vernal suns and vernal gales

Should kiss once more her fragrant breast.

Yes, hide beneath the mouldering heap,
The undelighting, slighted thing!
There, in the cold earth, buried deep,
In silence let it wait the Spring.

Oh! many a stormy night shall close
In gloom upon the barren earth,
While still, in undisturb'd repose,
Uninjur'd lies the future birth.

And ignorance, with sceptic eye,

Hope's patient smile shall wondering view;

Or mock her fond credulity,

As her soft tears the spot bedew.

Sweet smile of hope, delicious tear !

The sun, the shower indeed shall come;

The promis'd verdant shoot appear

And Nature bid her blossoms bloom.

And thou, O Virgin Queen of Spring—
Shalt, from the dark and lowly bed,
Bursting thy green sheath's silken string,
Unveil thy charms, and perfume shed;
Unfold thy robes of purest white,
Unsullied from their darksome grave,
And thy soft petals' silvery light
In the mild breeze unfetter'd wave.
So Faith shall seek the lowly dust,
Where humble Sorrow loves to lie,
And bid her thus her hopes entrust,
And watch with patient, cheerful eye;
And bear the long, cold, wintry night,
And bear her own degraded doom,
And wait till Heaven's reviving light,
Eternal Spring! shall burst the gloom.

THE FOREST FLY.

MRS. TIGHE.

So have I seen ere this a sillie flie
With mastif-dog in summer-heate to play,
Sometimes to sting him in his nose or eie ;
Sometimes about his grizly jaws to stay,
And buzzing round about his eares to flie,
He
snaps in vaine, for still she whips away,
And oft so long she dallies in this sort,

Till one snap comes, and marreth all her sport.
HARRINGTON.

"This little pest, Stomoxys calcitrans," says Mr. Kirby, "incessantly interrupts our studies and comfort in showery weather, making us even stamp like the cattle by its attacks on our legs; and if we drive it away ever so often, it will return again and again to the charge, and even contrive to make a comfortable meal through our silk or cotton stockings." It has been frequently mistaken for the harmless house-fly, Musca domestica. Upon a slight comparison, however, the latter will be found to have no organs fitted for penetrating the skin. The Stomoxys, and also the horse-fly or cleg, Hæmatopota pluvialis, are furnished with a horny sharp-pointed weapon, which acts as a syphon for extracting the blood. They seldom visit our houses, except when driven thither by unsettled weather.

THE WHITE AND RED ROSES;

ORIGIN OF THEIR BECOMING THE BADGES OF THE

HOUSES OF YORK AND LANCASTER.

Plantagenet. GREAT Lords and Gentlemen, what means this

silence?

Dare no man answer in a case of truth?

Suffolk. Within the Temple-hall we were too loud,
The garden here is more convenient.

Plantagenet. Since you are tongue-tied, and so loath to speak,
In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts:

Let him, that is a true-born gentleman,
And stands upon the honour of his birth,

If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,

From off this brier pluck a white rose with me. Somerset. Let him that is no coward, and no flatterer, But dare maintain the party of the truth,

Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me. Warwick. I love no colours; and without all colour Of base insinuating flattery,

I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.
Suffolk. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset,
And say, withal, I think he held the right.

Vernon. Stay, Lords and Gentlemen, and pluck no more,
'Till you conclude that he, upon whose side
The fewest roses are cropped from the tree,
Shall yield the other in the right opinion.
Somerset. Good master Vernon, it is well objected;
If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.

Plantagenet. And I.

Vernon. Then for the truth and plainness of the case,
I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,
Giving my verdict on the white rose side.
Somerset. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off,

Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red, And fall on my side so against your will. Vernon. If I, my Lord, for my opinion bleed, Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt,

And keep me on the side where still I am. Somerset. Well, well, come on; who else? Lawyer. Unless my study and my books be false,

The argument you held was wrong in you; (to Somerset)
In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too.

Plantagenet. Now, Somerset, where is your argument?
Somerset. Here in my scabbard, meditating that

Shall dye your white rose to a bloody red.

Plantagenet. Meantime, your cheeks do counterfeit our roses;
For pale they look with fear, as witnessing
The truth on our side.

Somerset. No, Plantagenet,

'Tis not for fear, but anger, that thy cheeks Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses; And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error. Plantagenet. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset ? Somerset. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet ? Plantagenet. Ay, sharp and piercing to maintain his truth, Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood. Somerset. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding roses, That shall maintain what I have said is true,

Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.
Plantagenet. Now by this maiden blossom in my hand,
I scorn thee and thy faction, peevish boy.

Warwick. And here I prophesy, this brawl to-day
Grown to this faction, in the Temple-garden,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

SHAKSPEARE, Henry VI.

During the turbulent factions between the Houses of York and Lancaster, the scaffold as well as the field, was incessantly drenched with the noblest blood of England. It has been computed, that not fewer than 86,000 persons lost their lives in the civil wars between The Two Roses: of whom were, Kings, two,

Ꭱ

-Prince, one,-Dukes, ten, Marquises, two, Earls, twenty-one,— Lords, twenty-seven, Viscounts, two-Lord Prior, one,-Judge, one, Knights, one hundred and thirty-nine,-Esquires, four hundred and forty-one, and Gentry, six hundred and thirty-eight. Twelve pitched battles were fought between the parties; in the last, that of Bosworth-field, Richard III. lost his life, and the Earl of Richmond was proclaimed King, under the title of Henry VII. With this battle ended the race of the Plantagenets, and thus was extinguished the unnatural war, which had so long desolated the kingdom.

THE HOROLOGE OF THE FIELDS.

IN

every copse, and shelter'd dell, Unveil'd to the observant eye, Are faithful monitors, who tell

How

pass the hours and seasons by.

The green-rob'd children of the Spring
Will mark the periods as they pass,
Mingle with leaves Time's feather'd wing,
And bind with flowers his silent glass.

Mark where transparent waters glide,

Soft flowing o'er their tranquil bed;
There, cradled on the dimpling tide,
Nymphæa* rests her lovely head :

But conscious of the earliest beam,
She rises from her humid rest,
And sees reflected in the stream
The virgin whiteness of her breast:

Till the bright day-star to the West
Declines, in ocean's surge to lave,
Then folded in her modest vest,

She slumbers on the rocking wave.

* The white Water-lily, Nymphæa alba, the most magnificent of our wild flowers, opens about seven in the morning, and closes about four in the afternoon, and then rests upon the surface of the water.