The Sensitive Brier.When sweetly breathed the budded rose In new-made majesty and grace, Did not the Master for s space A holy stillness interpose,__ Forbidding any wind to brush Her clasping petals ? . . . Ere they stirred While yet her whispered name, half-heard, Sank silenced in that heavenly hush, Did He not turn to fashion thee, O, babe-like flower! and smile to see,__ Deep musing on the Christ to be? Pales in thy woof the rainbow's red; Her gold adorns the raveled veils Where-through thy blessed breath exhales; Her lucid dews are on thee shed. So sweet! so sweet!__The beds of spice Whereon our fair, first mother slept, No daintier drops of honey kept To feed the bees of paradise. Lo, where thy shrinking leaves retreat At coming of the sinner's feet! Yet will thy soft forgiving greet. Ah, if the Lowly One might pass And yonder blowing roses all Their fragrant loveliness let fall To cushion smooth the thickening grass, How would I haste thyself to choose From all the pure and lifting high These most abundant blossoms, sigh: "Thou who eanst virtue give nor lose, With whom the burdened ones find rest,- The while I touch thy seamless vest, Gaze but on these and I am blest!" *A procumbent perennial, American genus __Amanda T. Jones. |
