LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD.

Summer shed its shining store,

She was happy as she prest them
Beneath her little feet;

She pluck'd them, and caress'd them

They were so very sweet;

They had never seemed so sweet before,
To Red Riding Hood, the darling,—
The flower of fairy lore.

How the heart of childhood dances
Upon a sunny day!

It has its own romances,

And a wide, wide world have they!
A world where fantasie is king,

Made all of eager dreaming,—
When once grown up and tall,
Now is the time for scheming,
Then we shall do them all!

Do such pleasant fancies spring
For Red Riding Hood, the darling,-
The flower of fairy lore?

She seems like an ideal love,
The poetry of childhood shown,
And yet loved with a real love,

As if she were our own;

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With Red Riding Hood, the darling,—
The flower of fairy lore.

Did the painter, dreaming
In a morning hour,

Catch the fairy seeming
Of this fairy flower?

Winning it with eager eyes,
From the old enchanted stories,
Lingering with a long delight,
On the unforgotten glories

Of the infant sight?

Giving us a sweet surprise

In Red Riding Hood, the darling,-
The flower of fairy lore?

Too long in the meadow staying,
Where the cowslip bends,

With the buttercups delaying
As with early friends,

LEGENDS OF FLOWERS.

Did the little maiden stay. Sorrowful the tale for us,

We, too, loiter 'mid life's flowers, A little while so glorious,

Soon lost in darker hours.

All love lingering on their way,
Like Red Riding Hood, the darling,—
The flower of fairy lore.

Legends of Flowers.

GORGEOUS tales in days of old

Lucy Hooper.

Were linked with opening flowers;

As if in their fairy urns of gold

Beat human hearts like ours;

The nuns in their cloisters sad and pale,
As they watched soft buds expand,
On their glowing petals traced a tale
Or legend of holy land.

Brightly to them did thy snowy leaves

For the sainted Mary shine,

As they twined for her forhead vestal wreaths
Of thy white buds, Cardamine!

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But the lover welcomed the herald bright
Of the glad St. Valentine's day.

The Crocus was hailed as a happy flower,

And the holy saint that day,

Poured out on the earth the golden shower
To light his votaries' way.

On the day of St. George, the brave St. George.
To merry England dear,

By field and by fell and by mountain gorge,
Shone Hyacinths blue and clear;
Lovely and prized was their purple light,
And 'twas said in ancient story,
That their fairy bells rang out at night
A peal to old England's glory;

And sages read in the azure hue

Of the flower so widely known,

That by white sail spread over ocean's blue
Should the empire's right be shown.

And thou of faithful memory,

St. John, thou shining light,

Beams not a burning torch for thee,
The scarlet Lychnis bright?

LEGENDS OF FLOWERS.

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See, holy Mary, at thy shrine,
Another pure flower bloom,

Welcome to thee with news divine.
The Lily's faint perfume.
Proudly its stately head it rears,
Arrayed in virgin white,—

So Truth, amid a world of tears,
Doth shine with vestal light.

And thou whose opening buds were shown
A Saviour's cross beside,
We hail thee, Passion-Flower, alone,

Sacred to Christ who died.

No image of a mortal love

May thy pale blossoms be;

Linked with a Passion far above

A Saviour's agony.

All other flowers are poor and dim,

All other glories loss;

We twine thy matchless buds for Him

Who died on holy cross.