THE ROMANCE OF NATURE. 
FLOWERS. 
Ye are the stars of earth—ye glorious things! 
And as your sldey kindred gem the night, 
So ye, with hues like rainbows, yet more bright. 
Gladden the day; and, as each sunburst flings 
More ivide your nectared leaves, where lab’ring sings 
The honey-seeking bee, or in gay flight 
Hovers the dainty butterfly, we might 
Deem ye, too, insects—birds without their wings. 
Ye are the stars of earth—and dear to me 
Is each small twinkling bud that wanders free 
’Mid glade or woodland, or by mmm’ring stream. 
For ye to me are more than sweet or fair— 
I love ye for the mem’ries that ye bear 
Of by-gone horn's, whose bliss was but a dream. 
From “Poems, by L. A. Twamley.” 
And are they not the stars of earth ? Doth not 
Our memory of their bright and varied forms 
Wind hack to childhood’s days of guileless sjiort. 
When these familiar friends of later years 
“ A beauty and a mystery ” remained ? 
And were they not to infant eyes more dear 
E ’en than their starry kindred ? For one glance 
Of wondering love we lifted to the vault 
Of the o’er-orhM sky, have we not bent 
Full many a gaze of pleased affection down 
To the gi'een field, staiTed over with its hosts 
Of daisies, countless as the blades of grass, 
B 
