LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

TEACH thee their language? sweet, I know no tongue,
No mystic art those gentle things declare;
I ne'er could trace the schoolman's trick among
Created things, so delicate and rare;
Their language? Prythee! why they are themselves
But bright thoughts syllabled to shape and hue,
The tongue that erst was spoken by the elves,

When tenderness as yet within the world was new. And still how oft their soft and starry eyes- [ing, Now bent to earth, to heaven now mutely pleadTheir incense fainting as it seeks the skies,

Yet still from earth with freshening hope receding, How often these to every heart declare,

With all the silent eloquence of truth

The language that they speak is Nature's prayer, To give her back those spotless days of youth.

SERENADE.

SLEEPING! why now sleeping?

The moon herself looks gay, While through thy lattice peeping,

Wilt not her call obey?

Wake, love, each star is keeping

For thee its brightest ray;

And languishes the gleaming
From fire-flies now streaming

Athwart the dewy spray.
Awake, the skies are weeping
Because thou art away.

But if of me thou'rt dreaming,

Sleep, loved one, while you may; And music's wings shall hover Softly thy sweet dreams over,

Fanning dark thoughts away, While, dearest, 'tis thy lover

Who'll bid each bright one stay.

TO AN AUTUMN ROSE.

TELL her I love her-love her for those eyes
Now soft with feeling, radiant now with mirth,
Which, like a lake reflecting autumn skies,

Reveal two heavens here to us on earth-
The one in which their soulful beauty lies,

And that wherein such soulfulness has birth: Go to my lady ere the season flies,

And the rude winter comes thy bloom to blastGo! and with all of eloquence thou hast,

The burning story of my love discover,

And if the theme should fail, alas! to move her, Tell her when youth's gay summer-flowers are past,

Like thee, my love will blossom to the last!

WHERE DOST THOU LOITER, SPRING?

WHERE dost thou loiter, spring,

Whilst it behoveth

Thee to cease wandering

Where'er thou roveth,

And to my lady bring

The flowers she loveth?
Come with thy melting skies,
Like her cheek blushing;
Come with thy dewy eyes,

Where founts are gushing;
Come where the wild bee hies
When dawn is flushing.
Lead her where, by the brook,
The first blossom keepeth,
Where, in the shelter'd nook,
The callow bud sleepeth,
Or, with a timid look,

Through its leaves peepeth.
Lead her where, on the spray,
Blithely carolling,
First birds their roundelay
For my lady sing,—
But keep, where'er she stray,
True love blossoming.

WRITTEN IN SPRING-TIME.

THOU wak'st again, () Earth,
From winter's sleep!-
Bursting with voice of mirth
From icy keep;

And, laughing at the sun,
Who hath their freedom won,

Thy waters leap!

Thou wak'st again, O Earth,
Freshly again,

And who by fireside hearth
Now will remain?
Come on thy rosy hours,-
Come on thy buds and flowers,
As when in Eden's bowers

Spring first did reign.
Birds on thy breezes chime
Blithe as in that matin-time,
Their choiring begun :
Earth, thou hast many a prime-
Man hath but one.

Thou wak'st again, O Earth!

Freshly and new,

As when at Spring's first birth
First flowerets grew.
Heart! that to Earth doth cling,
While boughs are blossoming,
Why wake not too?
Long thou in sloth hast lain,
Listing to Love's soft strain-
Wilt thou sleep on?
Playing, thou sluggard heart,
In life no manly part,

Though youth be gone.
Wake! 'tis Spring's quickening breath
Now o'er thee blown;

Wake thee! and ere in death
Pulseless thou slumbereth,
Pluck but from Glory's wreath

One leaf alone!

NOT hers the charms which LAURA's lover drew,
Or TITIAN's pencil on the canvass threw ;
No soul enkindled beneath southern skies
Glow'd on her cheek and sparkled in her eyes;
No prurient charms set off her slender form
With swell voluptuous and with contour warm;
While each proportion was by Nature told
In maiden beauty's most bewitching mould.
High on her peerless brow-a radiant throne
Unmix'd with aught of earth-pale genius sat alone.
And yet, at times, within her eye there dwelt
Softness that would the sternest bosom melt,
A depth of tenderness which show'd, when woke,
That woman there as well as angel spoke.
Yet well that eye could flash resentment's rays,
Or, proudly scornful, check the boldest gaze;
Chill burning passion with a calm disdain,
Or with one glance rekindle it again.
Her mouth-O! never fascination met
Near woman's lips half so alluring yet:

For round her mouth there play'd, at times, a smile,
Such as did man from Paradise beguile;
Such, could it light him through this world of pain,
As he'd not barter Eden to regain.

What though that smile might beam alike on all;
What though that glance on each as kindly fall;
What though you knew, while worshipping their

power,

Your homage but the pastime of the hour,
Still they, however guarded were the heart,
Could every feeling from its fastness start-
Deceive one still, howe'er deceived before,
And make him wish thus to be cheated more,
Till, grown at last in such illusions gray,
Faith follow'd Hope and stole with Love away.
Such was ALINDA; such in her combined
Those charms which round our very nature wind;
Which, when together they in one conspire,
He who admires must love-who sees, admire.
Variably perilous; upon the sight

Now beam'd her beauty in resistless light,
And subtly now unto the heart it stole,
And, ere it startled, occupied the whole.
"T was well for her, that lovely mischief, well
That she could not the pangs it waken'd tell;
That, like the princess in the fairy tale,
No soft emotions could her soul assail;
For Nature,-that ALINDA should not feel
For wounds her eyes might make, but never heal,-
In mercy, while she did each gift impart
Of rarest excellence, withheld a heart!

Hope, cheated too often, when life's in its spring, i
From the bosom that nursed it forever takes wing!
And Memory comes, as its promises fade,
To brood o'er the havoc that Passion has made.
As 'tis said that the swallow the tenement leaves
Where the ruin endangers her nest in the eaves,
While the desolate owl takes her place on the wall,
And builds in the mansion that nods to its fall.

DREAM.

YOUNG LESBIA slept. Her glowing cheek
Was on her polish'd arm reposing,
And slumber closed those fatal eyes,
Which keep so many eyes from closing,
For even Cupid, when fatigued

Of playing with his bow and arrows,
Will harmless furl his weary wings,

And nestle with his mother's sparrows. Young LESBIA slept-and visions gay Before her dreaming soul were glancing, Like sights that in the moonbeams show, When fairies on the green are dancing. And, first, amid a joyous throng

She seem'd to move in festive measure, With many a courtly worshipper,

That waited on her queenly pleasure. And then, by one of those strange turns

That witch the mind so when we 're dreaming, She was a planet in the sky,

And they were stars around her beaming. Yet hardly had that lovely light

(To which one cannot here help kneeling) Its radiance in the vault above

Been for a few short hours revealing, When, like a blossom from the bough,

By some remorseless whirlwind riven,
Swiftly upon its lurid path,

"Twas back to earth like lightning driven.
Yet, brightly still, though coldly, there
Those other stars were calmly shining,
As if they did not miss the rays

That were but now with their own twining. And, half with pique, and half with pain,

To be from that gay chorus parting, Young LESBIA from her dream awoke,

With swelling heart and tear-drop starting.

INTERPRETATION.

Had she but thought of those below,

Who thus were left with breasts benighted, Till Heaven dismiss'd that star to earth, By which alone our hearts are lighted—

Or, had she recollected, when

Each virtue from the world departed, How Hope, the dearest came again,

And stay'd to cheer the lonely-hearted: Sweet LESBIA Could not thus have grieved, From that cold, dazzling throng to sever, And yield her warm, young heart again To those that prize its worth forever.

THE subject of this notice was born in a rural village near the city of Portland. From her early years she has delighted in the study of philosophy, in abstruse speculations, and curious science, and she is probably more familiar with the best English literature than any American poet of her sex, except the author of "Zophiel." When but sixteen years old-a child in heart and in age-she was married to Mr. SEBA SMITH, a counsellor at law, then of Portland, and now of New York.

She began to write for the literary periodicals at an early age; and all her compositions, in prose and verse, have been carefully finished. Her style is simple and elegant, her illustrations felicitously chosen, and her verses have meaning as well as melody. Her longest poem is "The Sinless Child," published in the "Southern Literary Messenger" for March, 1842. Her heroine is a widow's fair-haired girl, of dove-like gentleness:

Every insect dwelt secure
Where little EVA play'd;
And piped for her its blithest song

When she in greenwood stray'd.
The widow's cot was rude and low-
The sloping roof moss-grown;
And it would seem its quietude
To every bird were known.

The winding vine its tendrils wove
Round roof and oaken door,

And, by the flickering light, the leaves
Were painted on the flogr.

Here the daughter, as

As the widow and her child walk in the twilight,

the first sees in the jagged limbs spreading above her

Spectres and distorted shapes,

That frown upon her path,

And mock her with their hideous eyes :
For when the soul is blind

To freedom, truth, and inward light,
Vague fears debase the mind.

But EVA, like a dreamer waked,

Look'd off upon the hill,

And mutter'd words of strange, sweet sound,
As if there linger'd still

Ethereal forms with whom she talk'd,

Unseen by all beside;

And she, with earnest looks, besought
The vision to abide.

She says to her mother

E'en now I mark'd a radiant throng,
On pinions sailing by,

To cheer with hope the trembling heart,
And cheer the dying eye;
They smiling pass'd the lesser sprites,
Each on his work intent;
And love, and holy joy, I saw
In every face were blent.

The meek-eyed violets smiling bowed-
For angels sported by-
Rolling in balls the fragrant dew

To scent the evening sky.

They kiss'd the rose in love and mirth,
And its petals fairer grew-

A shower of pearly dust they brought,
And o'er the lily threw.

A host flew o'er the mowing field,
And they were showering down
The little drops on the tender grass,
Like diamonds o'er it thrown.
They gemm'd each leaf and quivering spear
With pearls of liquid dew,

And bathed the stately forest-tree,
Till its robe was fresh and new.

I saw a meek-eyed angel curve
The tulip's painted cup,

And bless with one soft kiss the urn,
Then fold its petals up.

Another rock'd the young bird's nest,

As high on a branch it hung,
And the tinkling dew-drops rattled down
Where the old dry leaf was flung.

Each and all, as its task is done,
Soars up with a joyous eye,

Bearing aloft some treasured gift—

An offering to GOD on high.

They bear the breath of the odorous flower,
The sound of the pearly shell;

And thus they add to the holy joys
Of the home where spirits dwell."

At length the child fulfils her destiny. The widow, alarmed by her long absence one morning, seeks her, and finds her dead.

Why raises she the small, pale hand,
And holds it to the light?
There is no clear, transparent hue

To meet her dizzy sight.

She holds the mirror to her lips
To catch the moisten'd air :--
The widow'd mother stands alone
With her dead daughter there.
And yet, so placid is the face,

So sweet its lingering smile,
That one might deem the sleep to be
The maiden's playful wile.
The sinless child, with mission high,
A while to earth was given,

To show us that our world should be

The vestibule of heaven.

Did we but in the holy light

Of truth and goodness rise,

We might communion hold with GoD

And spirits from the skies.

The poem is in seven short cantos, and the verses

I have quoted convey an idea of its style and character.

THE ACORN.

AN acorn fell from an old oak tree,

And lay on the frosty ground

"O, what shall the fate of the acorn be?" Was whisper'd all around,

By low-toned voices, chiming sweet,

Like a floweret's bell when swungAnd grasshopper steeds were gathering fleet, And the beetle's hoofs up-rung

For the woodland Fays came sweeping past
In the pale autumnal ray,

Where the forest-leaves were falling fast,
And the acorn quivering lay;
They came to tell what its fate should be,
Though life was unreveal'd;

For life is holy mystery,

Where'er it is conceal'd.

They came with gifts that should life bestow:
The dew and the living air-

The bane that should work its deadly wo-
Was found with the Fairies there.

In the gray moss-cup was the mildew brought,
And the worm in a rose-leaf roll'd,
And many things with destruction fraught,
That its fate were quickly told.

But it needed not; for a blessed fate

Was the acorn's doom'd to be

The spirits of earth should its birth-time wait, And watch o'er its destiny.

To a little sprite was the task assign'd

To bury the acorn deep,

Away from the frost and searching wind,

When they through the forest sweep.

I laugh'd outright at the small thing's toil,
As he bow'd beneath the spade,
And he balanced his gossamer wings the while
To look in the pit he made.

A thimble's depth it was scarcely deep,
When the spade aside he threw,
And roll'd the acorn away to sleep

In the hush of dropping dew.

The spring-time came with its fresh, warm air,
And its gush of woodland song;
The dew came down, and the rain was there,
And the sunshine rested long:

Then softly the black earth turn'd aside,
The old leaf arching o'er,

And up, where the last year's leaf was dried,
Came the acorn-shell once more.

With coiled stem, and a pale green hue,
It look'd but a feeble thing:

Then deeply its roots abroad it threw,

Its strength from the earth to bring.
The woodland sprites are gathering round,
Rejoiced that the task is done-
That another life from the noisome ground
Is up to the pleasant sun.

The young child pass'd with a careless tread,
And the germ had well-nigh crush'd;
But a spider, launch'd on her airy thread,
The cheek of the stripling brush'd.

He little knew, as he started back,

How the acorn's fate was hung On the very point in the spider's track Where the web on his cheek was flung.

The autumn came, and it stood alone,

And bow'd as the wind pass'd by-
The wind that utter'd its dirge-like moan
In the old oak sear and dry;
And the hollow branches creak'd and sway'd,
But they bent not to the blast,
For the stout oak tree, where centuries play'd,
Was sturdy to the last.

A schoolboy beheld the lithe young shoot,
And his knife was instant out,
To sever the stalk from the spreading root,
And scatter the buds about;
To peel the bark in curious rings,
And many a notch and ray,
To beat the air till it whizzing sings,

Then idly cast away.

His hand was stay'd; he knew not why: "T was a presence breathed aroundA pleading from the deep-blue sky,

And up from the teeming ground.

It told of the care that lavish'd had been
In sunshine and in dew-

Of the many things that had wrought a screen
When peril around it grew.

It told of the oak that once had bow'd,
As feeble a thing to see;

But now, when the storm was raging loud,
It wrestled mightily.

There's a deeper thought on the schoolboy's brow,
A new love at his heart;

And he ponders much, as with footsteps slow
He turns him to depart.

Up grew the twig, with a vigour bold,
In the shade of the parent tree,
And the old oak knew that his doom was told,
When the sapling sprang so free.
Then the fierce winds came, and they raging tore
The hollow limbs away;

And the damp moss crept from the earthy floor
Around the trunk, time-worn and gray.

The young oak grew, and proudly grew,

For its roots were deep and strong; And a shadow broad on the earth it threw, And the sunlight linger'd long On its glossy leaf, where the flickering light Was flung to the evening sky; And the wild bird came to its airy height, And taught her young to fly.

In acorn-time came the truant boy,

With a wild and eager look,

And he mark'd the tree with a wondering joy,
As the wind the great limbs shook.
He look'd where the moss on the north side grew,
The gnarled arms outspread,

The solemn shadow the huge tree threw,
As it tower'd above his head:

And vague-like fears the boy surround,

In the shadow of that tree;

So growing up from the darksome ground,
Like a giant mystery.

His heart beats quick to the squirrel's tread

On the wither'd leaf and dry,
And he lifts not up his awe-struck head
As the eddying wind sweeps by.
And regally the stout oak stood,

In its vigour and its pride;

A monarch own'd in the solemn wood,
With a sceptre spreading wide-
No more in the wintry blast to bow,

Or rock in the summer breeze;
But draped in green, or star-like snow,
Reign king of the forest trees.

And a thousand years it firmly grew,
And a thousand blasts defied;

And, mighty in strength, its broad arms threw
A shadow dense and wide.

It grew where the rocks were bursting out
From the thin and heaving soil-

Where the ocean's roar, and the sailor's shout,

Were mingled in wild turmoil—

Where the far-off sound of the restless deep
Came up with a booming swell;
And the white foam dash'd to the rocky steep,
But it loved the tumult well.

Then its huge limbs creak'd in the midnight air,
And join'd in the rude uproar;

For it loved the storm and the lightning's glare,
And the sound of the breaker's roar.

The bleaching bones of the sea-bird's prey
Were heap'd on the rocks below;
And the bald-head eagle, fierce and gray,
Look'd off from its topmost bough.
Where its shadow lay on the quiet wave
The light boat often swung,

And the stout ship, saved from the ocean-grave,
Her cable round it flung.

Change came to the mighty things of earth-
Öld empires pass'd away;

Of the generations that had birth,

O Death! where, where were they? Yet fresh and green the brave oak stood,

Nor dream'd it of decay,

Though a thousand times in the autumn wood

Its leaves on the pale earth lay.

A sound comes down in the forest trees,
And echoing from the hill;

It floats far off on the summer breeze,
And the shore resounds it shrill.

Lo! the monarch tree no more shall stand

Like a watch-tower of the main

The strokes fall thick from the woodman's hand,
And its falling shakes the plain.

The stout live oak !-'T was a worthy tree,
And the builder mark'd it out;

And he smiled its angled limbs to see,
As he measured the trunk about.

She sits on the rocks, the skeleton ship,
With her oaken ribs all bare,
And the child looks up with parted lip,
As it gathers fuel there-
With brimless hat, the bare-foot boy

Looks round with strange amaze,
And dreams of a sailor's life of joy

Are mingling in that gaze.

With graceful waist and carvings brave
The trim hull waits the sea-
And she proudly stoops to the crested wave,
While round go the cheerings three.
Her prow swells up from the yeasty deep,

Where it plunged in foam and spray :
And the glad waves gathering round her sweep
And buoy her in their play.

Thou wert nobly rear'd, O heart of oak!
In the sound of the ocean roar,
Where the surging wave o'er the rough rock broke,
And bellow'd along the shore-

And how wilt thou in the storm rejoice,

With the wind through spar and shroud, To hear a sound like the forest voice,

When the blast was raging loud!

With snow-white sail, and streamer gay,
She sits like an ocean-sprite,
Careering on in her trackless way,

In sunshine or dark midnight:
Her course is laid with fearless skill,
For brave hearts man the helm ;
And the joyous winds her canvass fill--
Shall the wave the stout ship whelm?

On, on she goes, where the icebergs roll,
Like floating cities by ;

Where meteors flash by the northern pole,
And the merry dancers fly;

Where the glittering light is backward flung
From icy tower and dome,

And the frozen shrouds are gayly hung

With gems from the ocean foam.

On the Indian sea was her shadow cast,
As it lay like molten gold,

And her pendant shroud and towering mast
Seem'd twice on the waters told.
The idle canvass slowly swung

As the spicy breeze went by,
And strange, rare music around her rung
From the palm-tree growing nigh.