THE WREATH.

WHY BLOOM THE FLOWERS?

GOD might have made the earth bring forth
Enough for great and small,

The oak-tree and the cedar-tree,
Without a flower at all.

We might have had enough, enough
For every want of ours;
For luxury, medicine, and toil,

And yet have had no flowers.

Then wherefore, wherefore were they made,
All dyed with rainbow light,
All fashioned with supremest grace,
Upspringing day and night,—

Springing in valleys green and low,
And on the mountains high,
And in the silent wilderness,
Where no man passes by?

Our outward life requires them not,-
Then wherefore had they birth?
To minister delight to man,

To beautify the earth;

To comfort man; to whisper hope
Whene'er his faith is dim;
For whoso careth for the flowers,
Will much more care for him.

MARY HOWITT.

TO MY MOTHER.

THEY tell us of an Indian tree,
Which, howsoe'er the sun and sky
May tempt its boughs to wander free,
And shoot and blossom wide and high,

Far better loves to bend its arms

Downward again, to that dear earth,
From which the life, that fills and warms
Its grateful being, first had birth:

'Tis thus, though wooed by flattering friends,
And fed with fame,-if fame it be,-
This heart, my own dear mother, bends,
With love's true instinct, back to thee.

MOORE.

THE DAISY.

THERE is a flower, a little flower
With silver crest and golden eye;
That welcomes every changing hour,
And weathers every sky.

The prouder beauties of the field

In gay but quick succession shine; Race after race their honors yield,

They flourish and decline.

But this small flower, to nature dear,

While moons and stars their courses run, Wreathes the whole circle of the year, Companion of the sun.

It smiles upon the lap of May,

To sultry August spreads its charms,
Lights pale October on its way,
And twines December's arms.

The purple heath and golden broom1;
On moory mountains catch the
O'er lawns the lily sheds perfumaride.
The violet in the vale.

.r

But this bold floweret climbs light,

Hides in the forest, hauntsower

Plays on the margin of the April bright.
Peeps round the fox's de

BRYANT.