TO THE PLANT "EVERLASTING."

AND is it thus? Shall roses fade,
And violets wither in the shade?
Must the tall lily lose her height,
And sickly pale usurp her white?
And shall the luscious woodbine shed
The quaint horns of each clustering head?
Must the sweet lady jessamine,

Pride of the cottar's porch, resign
The virgin pureness of her coronal,

And thou sustain no change at all?
The snowdrops, with their fairy bells,
Have but one chilly month of beauty;
Then the rank-set daffodils

Take the term of vernal duty:
And then in order due succeed

The cowslip, maiden of the mead,
And primrose of the "river's brim,"—
A village lassie, frank and free,
Unlike the cowslip, tall and slim-

A lady she of high degree,

Like a Roman bride in her bridal trim.

But these, and many more as gay,
As innocent and frail as they,
By Nature strewn in sweet disorder,
Or nicely prank'd in bed and border,
Babes of April, pets of May,
Like joys of childhood pass away.
Summer has a hotter grace,

Of darker leaf and broader face.
I never loved them much, and so
I'm well content to let them go.
And yet they tarry, trying ever-
Vainly trying to be-what?
To be young in vain endeavour,—
Venerable they are not.

Never mind!-we see the stems
Of summer flowers, all bare and seedy,
Like princes, stript of diadems,

In garden plots hirsute and weedy.

And when green Autumn, matron sage,
A lady of a "certain age,'

Majestic trails her sinuous train,

And clothes the yellow vales with grain,
She hath attendance meet of flowers,
As bold and purple, ripe and rosy,

As dowagers right red and cosy :
Grave matrons in the fairy hospitals,
Staid, stately, formal, bearded seneschals;

The painted pageantry of fairy bowers;
The darlings of a region far away,
Late-flowering heaths of Southern Africa,
Fuchsias from Chili, dahlias from Peru,
And strange varieties of motley hue,

Or gorgeous tints, that show what art can do.
But Winter comes,-

They perish; let them go!

There still are flowers, whose ancestors were born Beneath the southern reign of Capricorn,

That deck old Winter under glassy frames.

I love them not, and do not know their names.
I better like the lichen's crackly scale,
The velvet moss, or verdant fox's tail.
But thus it seems that Nature ranges
In perpetuity of changes;

For every age she hath a symbol,
And tells it what it ought to be;

Youth, like Spring-time, light and nimble,

Evanescent in its glee;

Middle age, like woman wedded,

Should be Summer altogether;-
Only mark, it is not needed.
There should be any rainy weather.
Autumn beauties, such there are,
Of forty years, or rather more,
But not so delicately fair

As twenty years ago they were,

Yet rich and ripe as Autumn's store.
And Winter-no, I will not tell

How age is Winter's parallel.

If like it be in anything,

"Tis nearest to successive Spring.
Spring, Summer, Autumn, with their train,
Pass away and come again;

For every spray and every flower,
When sever'd from the natal stem,

May yield its fragrance for an hour
In coronary diadem:

But having done its best, it dies

Its sweetest odours are its parting sighs.
But what art thou, that bear'st a name
Synonymous with poet's fame?

Thou yellow, husky, arid thing!
Thou mere antipathy to Spring,
Not sweet to smell, nor fair to sight,
And useless as an anchorite,

Who feasted on continual fasting,

Art thou indeed "the Everlasting?"

Yes, so indeed, 'tis ever so;

"Tis right that God should only show His goodness for a little while.

Brief is the being of a smile,

And pity's tears are quickly dry,
And all good things are born to die;
While things unholy, of small worth,
Endure a weary time on earth.

But think not, therefore, that the good
Is but the Giver's fitful mood.

He only lets us have a taste

Of heavenly good, and then in haste
Withdraws it, that we may be led
To seek it at the fountain-head;
While for the earth he leaves a feint,
The idol of the permanent,-

A something very like, indeed,

But not the same; a worthless weed That hath the form, but not the power, The juice, or fragrance of a flower.