In the lines which we next select, it will be perceived that to minds of delicate fibre and poetic temperament,—the most familiar objects in nature will often suggest mournful images and recollections. A flower will awaken affecting reminiscences of some long lost and beloved object.

THE BELLE DU JOUR, OR CONVOLVULUS MINOR.

Sweet floret! beauty of a day,
And transient as thou'rt sweet;
Scarce opening to the morning ray
Ere shrinking from its heat:
Noon faded sees each early charm,
Thy blue eye closed in death;
And evening's breeze, thy wasted form
Wafts lightly o'er the heath.
While thus, sweet child of summer skies,
I see thee bloom and die;
What tender recollections rise
To prompt the pensive sigh:
For once in this lone bosom grew
As fair, as sweet a flower,
That smiled and budded forth like you
In morn's propitious hour;
But ah! while joy and hope were new
And promised bliss secure;
Like you, it drooping faded too—
And sunk to bloom no more.
Oft as I through the twilight gloom
A wandering mourner stray;
Pale shadowy tenant of the tomb,
She seems to cross my way:
For every object, every scene
Does my lost love recall,
From cheerful morning's rising beam
To mournful evening's fall.

Our readers must not be induced to cast aside the following poem, from its length. It is full of genuine feeling and pious sentiment.

EVENTIDE.

[Written in a dejected and visionary state of mind.]

Sweet beams the cheerful morn o'er happy hearts,
And every smiling scene new bliss imparts;
Each gay unfolding bud, each new born flower
Exhaling odors, owns the sun's warm power;
The new-waked birds their notes of gladness raise,
The trembling dew-drop rainbow tints displays,
In pendant beauty gems the lofty bough,
Or glitters in the velvet turf below.
On active wing abroad, the industrious bees
Their busy hum mix with the passing breeze,
The light breeze curls the silver-bosom'd flood,
Or freshening whispers through the waving wood;
The sun, now mounting, gilds the eastern skies,
Bright'ning the landscape with its glowing dyes—
Gay beauty smiles along each field and grove—
Congenial smiles—for youth, for joy, and love.
But when the soul, long since, has ceased to prove
The tender fallacies of youthful love—
And soberer joys, no more, the way adorn,
The sad heart, sick'ning, turns from sprightly morn—
Turns, pensive eve, to seek thy milder charms,
And dewy haunts, which no gay sunbeam warms.
When closing day shuts o'er its busy cares,
And onward stealing, twilight meek appears,
Drowns in obscurity the distant scene,
And casts a softening charm o'er all between—
'Tis then the sad, the lacerated mind,
Does in thy gentle gloom a soother find—
Sighs with less pain beneath its load of cares,
And mourns its sorrows with relieving tears.
Disrobed of gayer tint and gaudy hue,
Sweet Eventide! thy objects meet the view;
In modest russet clothed each shrub and flower,
Shades ever sacred to thy silent hour—
Shades how congenial! every heart must find,
Which long, long suffering, feels, but is resign'd.
So we oft see in life's bright morn display'd,
A youthful beauty gorgeously arrayed!
Unbent by care, her form erect she bears,
Bright are her eyes, unsullied yet by tears;
By thought unclouded her fair polish'd brow,
Nor does her buoyant heart a sorrow know:
Gay as the lark's first carol is her song,
As with light agile step she moves along;
Each young unwary heart to love she warms,
A sparkling wonder, and a blaze of charms!
But when this dazzling radiance is o'er
And morn's bright beauties fade to bloom no more;
When noontide clouds for evening showers prepare,
And the gay crowd no longer hail her fair—
Then, if beneath this form so heavenly bright
Some latent virtues rest—obscured from sight,
(By suffering taught its own intrinsic worth)
The struggling heart first learns to call them forth:
Taught by her own to feel another's woes,
The sweets of Heaven-born charity she knows;
While sympathetic tears unbidden flow,
And gentle pity does its balm bestow.
Now softened every gaudy trait is seen
To milder russet changed her vivid green;
Her morning splendors caught the young and gay,
But the meek mourner loves her eventide ray.
Ah! hour of twilight russet—thou art past—
And hope, sweet star of eve! has shone its last—
Nor can a ray of cheering light impart
Where midnight darkness ever wraps the heart.
At thy soft silent hour, in pensive mood,
Sweet eventide, I love to seek the wood;
And as I, musing, wind my devious walk,
With visionary forms hold fancied talk;
Forms that the cold embrace of death enfolds,
But which my soul in fond remembrance holds,
Down the lone walk, or midst the cluster'd trees,
I hear a well known voice in every breeze—
The passing object, or the shadowy green
Through their tall bolls in dim perspective seen,
Soft flitting forms present to fancy's eye,
That seem to glide with gentle greetings by.
Hail gentle spirits! Shades of friends revered—
By tender recollections now endeared;
And you, my earliest loss, parental pair—
Though o'er your tombs the oft revolving year
Has shed its winters frost and vernal dew,
Still faithful memory fondly turns to you—
For often in idea still are seen
Your silver locks, and venerable mien.
If conscience tells me I have err'd in aught,
Your cold reproving frown straight strikes my thought;
But if my heart acquits me of all guile,
It feels the joy of your approving smile.
A brother here, the worthiest of mankind—
Oft I recall—with pain and pleasure joined;
Two sisters—one advanced in matron grace,
Strong sense and feeling blended in her face;
Plain worth and warm affections fill'd her heart,
And to each action did their hue impart:
Benevolence and truth still led her way
And held their tenor through each well spent day:
The other, just a bride, in youthful charms,
With grace and beauty fill'd her husband's arms—
When Heaven, aware a mind so finely wrought,
So mild, so gentle, so refined in thought,
With erring mortals peace could never know,
Hasted to call her from a scene of woe;
And early placed her in those blest abodes
Where care no more afflicts, nor grief corrodes.
Sure, thou Supreme! of all thy works, the part
Most form'd for woe, is the soft female heart;
Her breast, the seat of innocence and love,
Was doom'd, alas! composure ne'er to prove—
What others felt, with but a passing sigh,
Kept the meek tear forever in her eye;
The varying blush that mental suffering speaks
In quick suffusion on her lovely cheeks—
Ah gentle Anna! leave thy Heaven awhile,
Greet a lone sister with one tearful smile.
Aerial music oft I seem to hear
In gentle breathings, strike my listening ear—
Full and melodious sounds, in swelling strains,
Then soothing soft, each dying note complains;
High o'er my head in trembling cadence plays,
Or lightly passes on the sighing breeze—
The ambient air a balmy fragrance fills,
And the charm'd sense each earth-born sorrow stills;
A lambent light pervades the dewy scene,
Illumes each branch and brightens o'er the green.
Sweet powers of Fancy! can this work be thine,
Or are these sounds, these forms, indeed, divine?
For see, where lightly borne on seraph wing,
An angel band their hallelujahs sing—
Its course, a form etherial this way bends,
Stooping to earth, and at my feet descends!
Oh, beauteous shade of what was once my child!
Wept when I wept, and smiled but as I smiled;
Phantom of what long filled this vacant heart,
That still would claim thee as its dearest part—
That still must hold thy cherish'd memory dear,
And greet thy much loved image with a tear.
In thy translated spirit sure I trace
Each mortal beauty of thy gentle face;
Shaded by silken curls of auburn hue,
Meet thy soft eyes of mild etherial blue;
Their look of patient innocence still feel
Touch my heart's finest nerve, with tender thrill,
See them in silent fondness fix'd on mine,
See thee for my maternal kiss incline—
With offer'd lip and fond extended arms,
While love ineffable my bleeding bosom warms!
Oh vision fair, of many an airy dream!
Of all my youthful hopes the darling theme;
Wreck of an anxious mother's early cares,
Loved object of her late regrets and tears—
Why, beauteous messenger, why hither sent,
On what mild purpose is thy errand bent?
For thou couldst only leave the blest above
On errands mild, and purposes of love.
Comest thou to warn me from this life of pain?
To bid me hope we soon shall meet again?
Sure in thy dulcet voice I hear thee say,
"Come, poor lone mourner, come to peace away:"
Welcome the sounds, for wretched must I be
While weary life divides my soul from thee.
Ah, no! that softly sorrowing look declares
Thou comest to chide my impious grief and tears—
Grief, that would thee recall to pain and woe,
Tears, that alone from selfish motives flow:
To bid me sink on an adoring knee
And thank my God, whose mercy shelter'd thee!
Who, while he seem'd, in each severe command,
To press me with a harsh chastising hand,
Prepared the balm that now my heartfelt woes
And anguished bosom, can alone compose;
And bad me know, in the conviction blest,
Though here thy suffering body knew no rest—
That thy pure soul, as spotless as 'twas given,
By his creating hand has wing'd its way to Heaven.
With sad solicitude 'twas mine to watch,
In silent woe, my angel's midnight couch,
Guide her uncertain steps the live-long day,
Or pine in trembling terrors when away—
To see the impending stroke I could not ward,
And mourn the sufferer that no love could guard;
But this blest certainty my heart repays,
And bids it throb with gratitude and praise.
Yet pardon, Lord! my bosom's sorrowing swell,
When on past scenes I yet too fondly dwell;
And you who ne'er have felt the cruel pang,
Who still can o'er your cherish'd darlings hang;
Who have not learn'd how hard it is to part,
And bear about a sad bereaved heart—
Or not possessing, ne'er conceive the charm
With which maternal love the heart can warm—
With kind indulgence hear pale sorrow's moan,
Nor lightly judge the woes you have not known.
Should the Supreme a cherub fair bestow,
More sweet than all his hand e'er form'd below;
While all that helpless infancy endears
Wakes into life a mother's hopes and fears—
And if thy heart shall love as mine has loved,
And prove the bitter pangs that mine has proved,
Then may'st thou judge—for thou wilt truly know
That keenest pang, a tender mother's woe;
Then wilt thou, pitying, hear pale sorrow's moan,
And kindly mingle with her sighs, thy own.
Thus, shadowy eve, allured and soothed by thee,
A wand'ring visionary I shall be—
And when o'er earth thy dewy breezes sweep,
Seek thy sequestered shades to muse and weep;
Not bitter tears—or without comfort shed,
A tribute to the loved, the honor'd dead.
Hail gentle spirits! while thus memory true
In fancy's wanderings oft communes with you,
This world recedes—the silent grave appears
A blest asylum from all earthly cares!
And faith, the hope inspiring, sooths my breast,
That there the sad and weary shall have rest.

We shall for the present, conclude with the following "Lines written on hearing a lady use the expression of smiling autumn."