THE CONSTANT FRIENDS. 
O sweet souled flowers with robes so bright, 
Fair guests of Eden-birth, 
In changeful characters of light, 
What lines of love divine ye write 
Upon this troubled earth ! 
Man siiin’d in Paradise, and fell — 
But when the storm arose — 
When thorns and brambles sow’d his path, 
And gentlest natures turned to wrath, 
Ye leagued not with his foes. 
Ye sinn’d not, though to him ye clung, 
When, at the guarded door, 
The penal sword its terrors flung, 
And warn’d him, with its flaming tongue, 
To enter there no more. 
Forth by his side ye meekly far’d, 
With pure, reproachless eye, 
And when the vengeful lion roar’d, 
A balmy gush of fragrance pour’d, 
In hallow’d sympathy. 
Ye sprang amid the broken sod, 
Ills weary brow to kiss ; 
Bloom’d at his feet where’er he trod, 
And told his burden’d heart of God, 
And of a world of bliss. 
Ye bow’d the head to teach him how 
He must himself decay ; 
Yet, dying, charged each tiny seed 
The earliest call of Spring to heed, 
And cheer his future way. 
From age to age, with dewy sigh, 
Even from the desert glade, 
Sweet words ye whisper, till ye die 
Still pointing to that cloudless sky, 
Where beauty cannot hide. 
MRS. SIGOURNEY. 
m 
