O mutely eloquent! the heart may read

In books like you, in tinted leaf or wing, Fragrance, and music, lessons that exceed The formal lore that graver pages bring..

Ye speak of frail humanity: ye tell

How man, like you, shall flourish and shall fall. But, ah! ye speak of Heavenly Love as well, And say, the God of flowers is God of all.

While Faith in you her Maker's goodness views Beyond her utmost need, her boldest claim, She catches something of your smiles and hues, Forgets her fears, and glows and smiles the

same.

Childhood and you are playmates; matching well
Your sunny cheeks, and mingling fragrant breath.
Ye help young Love his faltering tale to tell ;
Ye scatter sweetness o'er the bed of Death.

I

Sweet flowers, sweet flowers, be mine to dwell

with you!

Ye talk of song and sunshine, hope and love: Ye breathe of all bright things, and lead us through The best of earth to better still above.

Sweet flowers, sweet flowers! the rich exuberance Of Nature's heart in her propitious hours: When glad emotions in her bosom dance,

She vents her happiness in laughing flowers.

I love you, when along the fields in spring
Your dewy eyes look countless from the turf;
I love you, when from summer boughs you swing,
As light and silvery as the ocean surf.

I love your earliest beauties, and your last: Come when you may, you still are welcome here; Flinging your sweets on Autumn's dying blast,

Or weaving chaplets for the infant year.

I love your gentle eyes and smiling faces,

Bright with the sun, or wet with balmy showers; Your looks and language in all times and places, In lordly gardens, or in woodland bowers.

But most, sweet flowers, I love you,

As Jesus taught you when He o'er you trod ; And, mingling smiles and morals, bid us walk

Content o'er earth to glory and to God.

NEW-YEAR'S MORNING HYMN.

HAIL to another year,

The year that now begins!

All hail to Him who led us here

Through dangers and through sins!

Hail to another year!

Peace to the year that's past!

May this one at its close appear

Less worthless than the last!

Hail to another year !

Ere round its wheels are driven,

Each to the grave will stand more nearWill each be nearer heaven ?

Hail to another year!

Ere half its race is sped,

Ourselves, with all we treasure here,
May rest among the dead.

Hail to another year!

Though yet unknown, untrod,

Whate'er may come, we need not fear,

If friends, through Christ, with God.

Hail to another year,

A

year of peace and love!

Oh, may it prove a foretaste here

Of endless years above!