SHE laid her down,

Where rich profusion of gay flowers around
Had decked with artless show the sloping ground;
There the wild rose and modest violet grow,
There all thy charms, Narcissus! still abound:
There wrapt in verdure, fragrant Lilies blow,
Lilies that love the vale, and hide their bells of

snow.

MRS. TIGHE.

THE MAY LILIES TO ADELAIDE.

FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHULTZE.

FADED are our sister flowers,

Faded all and gone;

In the meadows, in the bowers,
We are left alone;

Dark above our valley lowers
That funereal sky,

And the thick and chilling showers
Now come blighting by.

Drooping stood we in the strife,

Pale and tempest-shaken,
Weeping that our love and life
Should at once be taken :

Wishing, while within its cover
Each wan flower withdrew,

That, like those whose life was over,
We had withered too.

But the air a soothing ditty

Whispered silently;

How that love and gentlest pity

Still abode with thee;

How thy very presence, ever
Shed a sunny glow,-

And where thou wert smiling, never
Tears were seen to flow.

So to thee, thou gentle spirit,
Are the wanderers come;
Let the weak thy care inherit,

Take the trembling home;

Though the bloom that did surround us
Withered with the blast,

Still the scent that hangs around us

Lives when that hath past.

W. TAYLOR.

The Broom.

Spartium Scoparium.

Class Diadelphia. Order Decandria.

IN the months of May and June, the long branches of this plant, with their large pendulous flowers of golden yellow, are exceedingly ornamental to the uncultivated parts of Britain. Its frequent mention by the poets of Scotland, where it especially abounds, has given it classical fame, and it claims historical interest from having given rise to the royal name of Plantagenet. It is disputed who first acquired this surname, by adopting as his badge a sprig of Genét or Planta Genista (one species of Broom); but it is known to have been transmitted by Geoffroi, fifth Earl of Anjou, the father of our Henry the Second, to his princely descendants, who bore it, until the cruel execution, in 1541, of the venerable Countess of Salisbury, when the last of this royal line fell a victim to the merciless jealousy of Henry the Eighth.

SONG.

THEIR groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands

reckon,

Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume,

Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green brekan, Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow

Broom:

Far dearer to me are yon humble Broom bowers, Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly

unseen;

For there, lightly tripping amang the wild flowers, A listening the linnet, aft wanders my Jean.

Though rich is the breeze in their gay sunny valleys,

And cauld Caledonia's blast on the wave; Their sweet-scented woodlands, that skirt the proud palace,

What are they? The haunt o' the tyrant and slave!

The slave's spicy forests, and gold-bubbling fountains,

The brave Caledonian views wi' disdain ; He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains, Save Love's willing fetters, the chains o' his

Jean.

BURNS.

THE BROOM.

AFAR from the cultured haunts of men,

Where nature has chanced thy seed to fling, In the turf-covered wild, or the woodland glen, I've seen thee unfold, 'mid the blossoms of spring.

Time was, when thy golden chain of flowers
Was linked, the warrior's brow to bind;
When reared in the shelter of royal bowers,
Thy wreath with a kingly coronal twined.

The chieftain who bore thee high on his crest,
And bequeathed to his race thy simple name,
Long ages past hath sunk to his rest,
And only lives in the voice of fame.

And one by one, to the silent tomb,
His line of princes hath passed away;
But thou art here, with thy golden bloom,
In all the pride of thy beauty gay.

Though the feeblest thing that nature forms,
A frail and perishing flower art thou;
Yet thy race has survived a thousand storms

That have laid the monarch and warrior low.