GRASS AND ROSES.

JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, an eminent clergyman, was born in Hanover, N. H., April 4, 1810, and graduated at Harvard College in 1829. With the exception of three years he has been the pastor of the Church of the Disciples, Boston, since 1841. He has been a prominent literary man, and besides publishing a number of volumes has contributed constantly to the best periodicals, and has written a number of hymns. His original compilation, entitled "Service Book," was published in 1844, and was the first introduction to Americans of "Nearer, my God, to thee," and other favorite hymns of Sarah Flower Adams.

SAADI MUSLIH-UD-DIN SAADI, of Shiraz, the Persian poet who next to Hafiz enjoys the greatest reputation, was born about 1175, and died in 1275. His Gulistan, or Rose Gar

den," is a collection of moral stories in prose and verse. It was published with an English translation, in Calcutta, in 1806, and in London in 1808.

I LOOKED where the roses were blooming, They stood among grasses and weeds;

I said, "Where such beauties are growing, Why suffer these paltry weeds ?”

Weeping, the poor things faltered:

"We have neither beauty nor bloom, We are grass in the roses' garden, But the Master gives us room.

"Slaves of a generous master, Born from a world above,

We came to this place in his wisdom, We stay to this hour from his love.

"We have fed his humblest creatures, We have served him truly and long; He gave no grace to our features,

We have neither color nor song.

"Yet he who has made the flowers
Placed us on the self-same sod;

He knows our reason for being, -
We are grass in the garden of God."

From the Gulistan of SAADI.

Translated by JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, D D.

THE DAISY.

EACH hath its place in the eternal plan: Heaven whispers wisdom to the wayside flower,

Bidding it use its own peculiar dower,
And bloom its best within its little span.
We must each do, not what we will, but
can;

Nor have we duty to exceed our power.
To all things are marked out their place and
hour:

The child must be a child, the man a man.

I love your earliest beauties, and your last: Come when you may, you still are welcome here ;

Flinging your sweets on autumn's dying blast, Or weaving chaplets for the infant year.

I love your gentle eyes and smiling faces, Bright with the sun, or wet with balmy showers;

Your looks and language in all times and places, In lordly gardens, or in woodland bowers.

But most, sweet flowers, I love you, when ye talk

As Jesus taught you when he o'er you trod; And, mingling smiles and morals, bid us walk Content o'er earth to glory and to God.

O mutely eloquent! the heart may read

In books like you, in tinted leaf or wing, Fragrance and music, lessons that exceed

The formal lore that graver pages bring.

Ye speak of frail humanity: ye tell

How man, like you, shall flourish and shall fall.

But, ah! ye speak of heavenly love as well, And say, the God of flowers is God of all.

While Faith in you her Maker's goodness views

Beyond her utmost need, her boldest claim, She catches something of your smiles and hues,

Forgets her fears, and glows and smiles the

same.

Childhood and you are playmates; matching well

Your sunny cheeks, and mingling fragrant breath.

Ye help young Love his faltering tale to tell; Ye scatter sweetness o'er the bed of Death.

Sweet flowers, sweet flowers, be mine to dwell with you!

Ye talk of song and sunshine, hope and love:

Ye breathe of all bright things, and lead us through

The best of earth to better still above.

Sweet flowers, sweet flowers! the rich exuberance

Of Nature's heart in her propitious hours: When glad emotions in her bosom dance,

She vents her happiness in laughing flowers.

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I love you, when along the fields in spring Your dewy eyes look countless from the turf; I love you, when from summer boughs you swing,

As light and silvery as the ocean surf. HENRY FRANCIS LYTE.

CONSIDER THE LILIES.

SWEET nurslings of the vernal skies, Bathed in soft airs, and fed with dew, What more than magic in you lies

To fill the heart's fond view!
In childhood's sports companions gay;
In sorrow, on life's downward way,
How soothing! in our last decay,
Memorials prompt and true.

Relics ye are of Eden's bowers,
As pure, as fragrant, and as fair,
As when ye crowned the sunshine hours
Of happy wanderers there.
Fallen all beside, — the world of life,
How is it stained with fear and strife!
In reason's world what storms are rife,
What passions rage and glare!

But cheerful, and unchanged the while,

Your first and perfect form ye show, The same that won Eve's matron smile In the world's opening glow.

The stars of heaven a course are taught,
Too high above our human thought;
Ye may be found, if ye are sought,
And as we gaze, we know.

Ye dwell beside our paths and homes,
Our paths of sin, our homes of sorrow,
And guilty man, where'er he roams,
Your innocent mirth may borrow.
The birds of air before us fleet,
They cannot brook our shame to meet,
But we may taste your solace sweet,
And come again to-morrow.

Ye fearless in your nests abide;

Nor may we scorn, too proudly wise, Your silent lessons, undescried

By all but lowly eyes; For ye could draw the admiring gaze Of Him who worlds and hearts surveys; Your order wild, your fragrant maze,

He taught us how to prize.

Ye felt your Maker's smile that hour,

As when he paused, and owned you good; His blessing on earth's primal bower, Ye felt it all renewed.

"CONSIDER THE LILIES, HOW THEY GROW."

WILLIAM CHANNING GANNETT was born in Boston, March 13, 1840. He graduated at Harvard College in 1860, and at the Theological School in 1868. He was for a time pastor of a church at Milwaukee, and has since 1870 lived chiefly in Boston. He has contributed to the magazines and papers various sermons, lectures, and addresses; and has also written some very fine hymns and other poems.

HE hides within the lily

A strong and tender care,
That wins the earth-born atoms
To glory of the air;

He weaves the shining garments
Unceasingly and still,
Along the quiet waters,

In niches of the hill.

We linger at the vigil

With him who bent the knee, To watch the old-time lilies In distant Galilee; And still the worship deepens And quickens into new, As brightening down the ages God's secret thrilleth through.

O Toiler of the lily,

Thy touch is in the man! No leaf that dawns to petal But hints the angel-plan. The flower-horizons open!

The blossom vaster shows! We hear thy wide world's echo, —-See how the lily grows.

Shy yearnings of the savage,
Unfolding thought by thought,
To holy lives are lifted,

To visions fair are wrought;
The races rise and cluster,
Transfigurations fall,

Man's chaos blooms to beauty,

Thy purpose crowning all !

WILLIAM CHANNING GANNETT.

THE RHODORA.

ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER?

IN May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, To please the desert and the sluggish brook; The purple petals, fallen in the pool,

Made the black water with their beauty gay; Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,

And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the marsh and sky,
Dear, tell them that if eyes were made for
seeing,

Then beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose !
I never thought to ask, I never knew;
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same power that brought me there
brought you.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

THE ROSE OF JERICHO.

AND was it not enough that, meekly growing, In lack of all things wherein plants delight, Cool dews, rich soil, and gentle showers refreshing.

It yet could blossom into beauty bright? In the hot desert, in the rocky crevice,

By dusty waysides, on the rubbish heap, Where'er the Lord appoints, it smiles, believing That where he planteth, he will surely keep! Nay, this is not enough, the fierce sirocco

Must root it up, and sweep it from its home, And bear it miles away, across the desert,

Then fling it, ruthless, on the white sea-foam.

Do they thus end, those lives of patient duty, That grow, through every grief and pain, more fair,

Are they thus cast aside, at length, forgotten? Ah no! my story is not ended there.

Those roots upon the waves of ocean floating,

That in their desert homes no moisture knew, Now, at the fount their life-long thirst are quenching,

Whence rise the gentle showers, the nightly dew.

They drink the quickening streams through every fibre

Until with hidden life each seed shall swell 11; Then come the winds of God, his word fulfilling,

And bear them back, where he shall please, to dwell.

Thus live meek spirits, duly schooled to duty.

The whirlwind storm may sweep them from their place ;

What matter if by that affliction driven Straight to their God, the fountain of all grace?

And when, at length, the final trial cometh, Though hurled to unknown worlds, they shall not die ;

Borne not by winds of wrath, but God's own angels,

They feed upon his love and dwell beneath

his eye,

Till by the angel of the resurrection

One awful blast through heaven and earth be blown;

Then soul and body, met no more to sunder, That all God's ways are true and just shall own!

EMILY SEAVER.

SNAPDRAGON.

A RIDDLE FOR A FLOWER-BOOK.

I AM rooted in the wall

Of buttressed tower or ancient hall;
Prisoned in an art-wrought bed,
Cased in mortar, cramped with lead;
Of a living stock alone
Brother of the lifeless stone.

Else unprized, I have my worth
On the spot that gives me birth ;
Nature's vast and varied field
Braver flowers than me will yield,
Bold in form and rich in hue,
Children of a purer dew;
Smiling lips and winning eyes
Meet for earthly paradise.

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Choice are such, and yet thou knowest
Highest he whose lot is lowest.
They, proud hearts, a home reject
Framed by human architect ;
Humble I can bear to dwell
Near the pale recluse's cell,
And I spread my crimson bloom,
Mingled with the cloister's gloom.

Life's gay gifts and honors rare,
Flowers of favor, win and wear!
Rose of beauty, be the queen
In pleasure's ring and festive scene.
Ivy, climb and cluster, where
Lordly oaks vouchsafe a stair.
Vaunt, fair lily, stately dame,
Pride of birth and pomp of name.
Miser crocus, starved with cold,
Hide in earth thy timid gold.
Travelled dahlia, freely boast
Knowledge brought from foreign coast.

Pleasure, wealth, birth, knowledge, power,
These have each an emblem flower;
So for me alone remains
Lowly thought and cheerful pains.
Be it mine to set restraint
On roving wish and selfish plaint ;
And for man's drear haunts to leave
Dewy morn and balmy eve.
Be it mine the barren stone

To deck with green life not its own,
So to soften and to grace

Of human works the rugged face;
Mine, the Unseen to display
In the crowded public way,
Where life's busy arts combine
To shut out the Hand Divine.

THE VIOLET.

JONES VERY, a clergyman without charge, was born in Salem, Mass., Aug. 28, 1813, and was educated at Harvard College, graduating there in 1836. His life was spent in Salem in literary pursuits. His sonnets are highly prized. He died May 8, 1880.

THOU tellest truths unspoken yet by man,
By this thy lonely home and modest look ;
For he has not the eyes such truths to scan,
Nor learns to read from such a lowly book.
With him it is not life firm-fixed to grow
Beneath the outspreading oaks and rising pines,
Content this humble lot of thine to know,
The nearest neighbor of the creeping vines ;
Without fixed root he cannot trust like thee
The rain will know the appointed hour to fall,
But fears lest sun or shower may hurtful be,
And would delay or speed them with his call;
Nor trust like thee, when wintry winds blow
cold,

Whose shrinking form the withered leaves infold.

JONES VERY.

THE MIGNONETTE AND THE

ОАК.

JOHN HALL, pastor of one of the most prominent Presbyterian churches of New York City, was born in the county of Armagh, Ireland, July 31, 1829, and was educated at Belfast College. He was licensed to preach in 1849, and subsequently was pastor of churches in Armagh and Dublin. He was installed over his present charge in 1867. The following lines were written when the author was in his teens.

I MARKED a child, a pretty child,
A gentle, blue-eyed thing;
She sowed the scented mignonette

One sunny day in spring;

And while the tiny grains she sowed,
The stream of thought thus sweetly flowed:

"On this dear bed the dew shall fall, And yon bright sun shall shine, 'T will spring and grow and blossom then; And it will all be mine!"

And the fair thing laughed in childish glee, To think what a harvest hers should be.

I saw a man an acorn plant
Upon the hillside bare,

No spreading branch, no shading rock,
Lent friendly shelter there;
And thus, as o'er the spot he bowed,
I heard him, for he thought aloud:

"Frail thing! ere glossy leaf shall grace Thy wide and sturdy bough,