Oh, loveliest month of the year,
  Too soon will thy glories depart,
But not the sweet faith thou’st wakened,
  Within this worshiping heart.

For though, like all beauty of earth,
  Thou’rt trammeled by earthly decay,
Yet my soul is lifted by thine,
  To glories that fade not away.

OLD LETTERS.

TO MRS. ANNIE P——.

“Burn my old letters”—­ah! for you
  These words are easy to say,
For you, who know not the light they brought
  To many a darksome day.

And, then, old letters to me are links
  To those days forever gone;
For we cling to the past as age would cling
  To youth, in its rosy dawn.

But the wintry air is chill without,
  And the fire is faint and low,
So I’ll gather them up—­the page of to-day
  With the date of long ago.

Gather them up and cast them in
  Like trash, to the greedy flame;
And I marvel not that the world hath said,
  “Friendship is only a name!”

For the human heart’s a changeful thing,
  And sometime we would borrow
The light, that other days have given,
  To cheer us on the morrow.

And so, as I sit in the merry light
  Of the blaze that upward flashes,
I think, like these, our dearest hopes
  May come to dust and ashes.

JUNE ROSES.

What marvelous new-born glory
  Is flushing the garden and lawn! 
Hath the queen of all blossoming beauty
  Come forth with the early dawn?

Like the first faint flush of morn,
  To the watchers, aweary with night,—­
Like treasures long hidden away,
  Ye burst on my joyous sight.

Not e’en the “first rose of Summer,”
  Could yesterday be seen—­
Only a tint like the sea-shell,
  Deep in a prison of green.

Did the lover-like kiss of the south wind,
  While wand’ring o’er forest and lake,
Bid thee start in thy slumbering beauty,
  And crimson with blushes awake?

’Tis long since the fragrant lilac
  Flourished and drooped at thy side,
While many a frail young flow’ret since
  Hath quietly blossomed and died.

And for days the pale, proud lily
  In regal beauty hath shown,
Catching the sun’s warm glances
  Ere the young roses had blown.

But perfumed breezes are whispering: 
  “To-day the roses have come,”
And the cottage will rival the palace,
  Decked in thy radiant bloom.

MUSIC.

The spirit is often enraptured
  With sweet tokens of love divine,
But seldom in language so plain
  As spoken through music, to mine.

Then my soul flings wide her portals,
  And visions of Paradise throng,
While I bow, in silent devotion,
  To the Author of genius and song.