TO MISS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 241, 12 September 1872, Page 9

TO MISS.

Sweet to choose a flower for thee White &b thine own parity ! For the sweetest flowers that blow Come spotless Btill like summer snow. And X for thee a blossom seek, Such as the holy maid and meek Una, in her glittering hair Or her small girdle clasp'd might wear. Such as that lady high and pure, Milton's chasteat portraiture, Had wav'd within her virgin hand What time she spurn'd th' enchanter's wand : Such flower might well thine emblem be Symbol of truth and purity. Fair violets, earliest breath of spring, Were they a fitting offering ? No ! No ! too common they are found In every path the country round, Pluck'd or unpluck'd they strew the ground ; The rose of summer, beauty born, Fair queen of flowers ? Alas ! the thorn. The jessamine, whose branches tall Gleam bright with daylight stars ? they fall, Almost before they blow they fall ! The rich magnolia, proud and high ? Too proud for ncr whose modest eye Looks upward only to the sky. Then come, sweet, delicate and pale Young, graceful Lily of the vale. Blooming beneath the fostering shade Of oak or beech in woodland glade ; Or in the garden's shelter'd bower, Choice and apart, a cherish'd flower ! Waving its white and fragrant bells 'Till we might deem in those small cells >ATh&imusie fit for fairies dwells : Jor shaking off the dewdrops clear Which gem its leaves like Pity's tears Or, all unseen, its odours rare

Commingling with the sunny air Modest as sweet, and sweet as fair. Offspring of Nature's gentlest power, Fare as thyself, thine emblem flower.