Now with foreheads blushing
With a rapturous flushing—­
Now the streams are rushing
  In among the waves. 
Now in shy confusion,
With a pale suffusion,
Seek the wild seclusion
  Of sequestered caves.

All the summer hours
Hiding in the bowers,
Scattering silver showers
  Out upon the strand;
O’er the pebbles crashing,
Through the ripples splashing,
Liquid pearl-wreaths dashing
  From each other’s hand.

By yon mossy boulder,
See an ivory shoulder,
Dazzling the beholder,
  Rises o’er the blue;
But a moment’s thinking,
Sends the Naiad sinking,
With a modest shrinking,
  From the gazer’s view.

Now the wave compresses
All their golden tresses—­
Now their sea-green dresses
  Float them o’er the tide;
Now with elf-locks dripping
From the brine they’re sipping,
With a fairy tripping,
  Down the green waves glide.

Some that scarce have tarried
By the shore are carried
Sea-ward to be married
  To the glad gods there: 
Triton’s horn is playing,
Neptune’s steeds are neighing,
Restless with delaying
  For a bride so fair.

See at first the river
How its pale lips quiver,
How its white waves shiver
  With a fond unrest;
List how low it sigheth,
See how swift it flieth,
Till at length it lieth
  On the ocean’s breast.

Such is Youth’s admiring,
Such is Love’s desiring,
Such is Hope’s aspiring
  For the higher goal;
Such is man’s condition
Till in heaven’s fruition
Ends the mystic mission
  Of the eternal soul.

THE FLOWERS OF THE TROPICS.

“C’est ainsi qu’elle nature a mis, entre les tropiques, la plupart des fleurs apparentes sur des arbres.  J’y en ai vu bien peu dans les prairies, mais beaucoup dans les forets.  Dans ces pays, il faut lever les yeux en haut pour y voir des fleurs; dans le notre, il faut les baisser a terre.”—­Saint Pierre, “Etudes de la Nature.”

In the soft sunny regions that circle the waist
  Of the globe with a girdle of topaz and gold,
Which heave with the throbbings of life where they’re placed,
  And glow with the fire of the heart they enfold;
Where to live, where to breathe, seems a paradise dream—­
  A dream of some world more elysian than this—­
Where, if Death and if Sin were away, it would seem
  Not the foretaste alone, but the fulness of bliss.

Where all that can gladden the sense and the sight,
  Fresh fruitage as cool and as crimson as even;
Where the richness and rankness of Nature unite
  To build the frail walls of the Sybarite’s heaven. 
But, ah! should the heart feel the desolate dearth
  Of some purer enjoyment to speed the bright hours,
In vain through the leafy luxuriance of earth
  Looks the languid-lit eye for the freshness of flowers.