Desert lilies, desert lilies!
Bidding welcome to the ray
Of this fierce-flaming day,
Courting no cloud nor shade
Of rock, or cliff, or glade,
Opening your purple eyes
Unfearing to these skies.
What sunlight ye have seen,
What moonshine in these heavens,
What starlight clear and glad,
What soft dew at early dawn,
What cold breezes o'er this waste!
What sunsets ye have seen,
On these wondrous peaks around,
What tints of purple glow,
At sunset or at morn!
What strange and solemn airs
Have you heard, as all night long
Ye listened, night by night,
Coming forth from yon wild crags,
Moving out along these slopes,
Stealing down yon mighty hill
To the silent sands beneath,
Creeping thro' the wiry boughs
Of these tarfas, far and near!
O life, how glad and blest,
Thou seem'st in such a waste!
O beauty what a power,
To cheer in loneliest hour!
O earth, where is the spot,
Which thy God visits not?
On which his eye of light
Rests not in gentle love;
O'er its most barren sands,
Rejoicing from above!
O desert rocks, if one small leaf
Can make these wastes look fair,
What will ye be when these scorched
plains,
Earth's richest buds shall bear ?
When eastern suns shall cease to scorch,
And storms no more destroy;
And these lone valleys shall give forth
Their streams, and flowers, and joy.
THERE is a star in yonder sky,
Above all stars its seems to shine,
"Tis long since first it fixed my eye,
And I have learned to call it mine.
It rose out of my own blue sea,
Then passed above those mountains green, Moving along all placidly
As if it loved to watch the scene.
Far up the heavens it floated slow,
Gleaming across yon solemn tower,
As if it loved the scene below;-
A willing lingerer hour by hour.
It seemed to take its place each night,
A sentinel to guard my rest,
An eye of love and gentle light,
Pouring sweet thoughts into my breast.
In through my lattice, as I lay
Half-soothed to sleep, it nightly shone⚫ And, as I gazed upon its ray,
I felt that I was not alone.
What tears that gentle star has dried,
What joy that sparkling orb has given;
Thoughts for this earth too high, too wide,
Dreams of its own all-radiant heaven.
It spoke of day beyond this night,
In the glad land where all is fair;
It pointed to the home of light,
And bid me rest my spirit there.
It spoke of Him whose love is light,
Whose death is life, whose cross is peace Whose favour is the star of night,
The source and pledge of endless bliss.
May I not love that star on high?
May not its light the fairest seem?
May I not trace a loving eye,
A kindly smile in every beam?
WHAT a world with all its sorrows!
What a scene, would it but stay;
What an earth, if all its morrows
Were as fair as this "to-day!"
When earth's summer-pulse is beating
With the fever-fire of June,
And the flowers fling up their greeting,
Quivering to the joyous noon.
When the streamlet, smiling gladly,
Hurries calmly, brightly by,
Not a voice around speaks sadly
Not a murmur nor a sigh.
Sunbeams, with their fond caresses,
Smooth each rosebud's velvet fold,
Lingering in the glowing tresses
Of yon rich laburnum's gold.
Nature all its gay adorning
Opens to the day's bright bliss,
Like a child at early morning,
Wakened by its mother's kiss.
What a world when all its sorrow
Shall for ever pass away!
What an earth! when each "to-morrow
Shall be fairer than "to-day."
THE flowers of Spring have come and gone;
Bright were the blossoms, brief their stay;
They shone, and they were shone upon,
They flourished, faded, passed away.
So, hidden from our sorrowing eyes,
Our young, sweet, spring-bloom buried lies
One blast of earth swept o'er the flower,
It died, the blossom of an hour.
The summer flowers are freshly blowing
Beneath glad July's genial morn;
Like smiles the face of earth bestrowing,
For fragrance and for beauty born;
My summer-flower has passed away;
"Tis now a blank, where all was gay,-
A blank, where at each evening's close,
I hoped to watch my budding rose.
Soon Autumn, with o'erflowing measure,
Will hang, upon each bending tree,
The clusters of its golden treasure,
The life of earth's vast family.
Alas, in one disastrous hour,
From my green vine has fallen the flower;
A blighted hue its branches wear,
My autumn-tree looks cold and bare.
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