LESSONS FROM THE GORSE.

"To win the secret of a weed's plain heart."

LOWELL.

I.

MOUNTAIN gorses, ever-golden.
C'ankered not the whole year long!
Do ye teach us to be strong,
Howsoever pricked and holden

Like your thorny blooms, and so

Trodden on by rain and snow,

Up the hill-side of this life, as bleak as where ye grow?

II.

Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms,

Do ye teach us to be glad

When no summer can be had,

Blooming in our inward bosoms?

Ye, whom God preserveth still,
Set as lights upon a hill,

Tokens to the wintry earth that Beauty liveth still!

From that academic chair

Canopied with azure air,

That the wisest word man reaches

Is the humblest he can speak?

Ye, who live on mountain peak,

Yet live low along the ground, beside the grasses meek!

IV.

Mountain gorses, since Linnæus
Knelt beside you on the sod,

For your beauty thanking God,-—

For your teaching, ye should see us

Bowing in prostration new!

Whence arisen,-if one or two

Drops be on our cheeks-O world, they are not tears but dew.

THE LADY'S YES.

I.

'YES,' I answered you last night; 'No,' this morning, sir, I say: Colours seen by candle-light

Will not look the same by day.

II.

When the viols played their best,
Lamps above and laughs below,

Love me sounded like a jest,
Fit for yes or fit for no.

III.

Call me false or call me free,

Vow, whatever light may shine,——

No man on your face shall see

Any grief for change on mine.

IV.

Yet the sin is on us both;

Time to dance is not to woo; Wooing light makes fickle troth, Scorn of me recoils on you.

V.

Learn to win a lady's faith

Nobly, as the thing is high, Bravely, as for life and death, With a loyal gravity.

VI.

Lead her from the festive boards, Point her to the starry skies; Guard her, by your truthful words Pure from courtship's flatteries.

VII.

By your truth she shall be true,
Ever true, as wives of yore;
And her yes, once said to vou,

SHALL be Yes for evermore.

A WOMAN'S SHORTCOMINGS.

I.

SIE has laughed as softly as if she sighed,
She has counted six, and over,

Of a purse well filled, and a heart well tried—
Oh, each a worthy lover!

They give her time;' for her soul must slip
Where the world has set the grooving:
She will lie to none with her fair red lip-
But love seeks truer loving.

II.

She trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb,
As her thoughts were beyond recalling,
With a glance for one, and a glance for some,
From her eyelids rising and falling;
Speaks common words with a blushful air,,
Hears bold words, unreproving;

But her silence says-what she never will swear
And love seeks better loving.