Who can paint

Like Nature? Can imagination boast
Amidst his gay creation, hues like hers?

And can he mix them with that matchless skill,
And lay them on so delicately fine,

And lose them in each other, as appears

In every bud that blows? If fancy then
Unequal, fail beneath the pleasing task,
Ah! what can language do?

The flowers of Spring are beautiful,
And well their sight may cast
Before onr visions, fresh and full,
The memory of the past.

The spirit alters, ne'er again
Will life restore the hours

THOMSON.

Of innocence, when, free from pain,

Our day was like the flowers.

MOIR.

THE ROSE.

What beauty adorns the sweet rose,
Bedew'd with the tears of the morn;

But doom'd are its charms soon to close

Its place to be fill'd by the thorn.

J

Thus man's transient life glides away,
And swiftly youth's pleasures are fled;
A very few years bring decay,

Then o'er his cold ashes we tread.

ANON.

The Rose, the sweetly, blooming Rose,
Ere from the tree it's torn,

Is like the charms which Beauty shews,
In Life's exulting morn!

But oh! how soon its sweets are gone,
How soon it withering lies,

So when the Eve of Life comes on,
Sweet Beauty fades and dies:

Then since the fairest form that's made,
Soon withering we shall find,

Let us possess what ne'er will fade,

The beauties of the Mind!

HON. C. J. Fox.

How fair is the rose! What a beautiful flower! The glory of April and May;

But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour, And they wither and die in a day.

Yet the rose has one powerful virtue to boast
Above all the flowers of the field,

When its leaves are all dead, and fine colours are lost,

Still how sweet a perfume it will yield!

So frail is the youth, and the beauty of man, Though they bloom, and look gay, like a rose ; But all our fond care to preserve them is vain, Time kills them as fast as he goes.

Then I'll not be proud of my youth and my beauty,
Since both of them wither and fade;

But gain a good name by well doing my duty,
This will scent like a rose when I'm dead.

DR. WATTS.

THE ROSE-BUD.

At dawn, upon its slender stem
An op'ning rose-bud bloom'd,
And, deck'd with many a dewy gem,
The passing breeze perfum'd.

I sought it at the noontide hour,
Its gentle head reclined,

And 'neath the sun's meridian pow'r,
I saw it fast declined.