reat sweetness of diction.]

When night o'erspreads each hill and dale
Beneath its darksome wing
Are heard thy sweet and mellow notes
Through the lone midnight ring;
And if a pang within thy breast
Should cause thy heart to bleed,
Thou wilt not hush until the dawn
Shall drive thee from the mead.

* * * * *

Altho' thy heart beneath the pang
Should falter in its throes
Thou wilt not grieve thy nestlings young,
Thy song thou wilt not close.
When all the chorus of the bush
By night and sleep are still,
Thou then dost chant thy merriest lays,
And heaven with music fill.

THE FLOWERS OF SPRING.

BY THE REV. J. EMLYN JONES, M.A., LL.D.

[The Rev. John Emlyn Jones, M.A., LL.D., the lamented author of the
beautiful stanzas, from which the following translation is made, was an
eloquent minister of the Baptist Church in Wales, and died on the 20th
day of January, 1873, at the age of 54 years, at Beaufort, in
Monmouthshire, leaving a widow and seven children to mourn their great
loss. He was also an eminent poet, and one of his poems obtained the
chair prize at a Royal Eisteddfod. It may be remarked that the lamented
poet on his death bed (in answer to an application from the editor)
desired his wife to inform him that he was welcome to publish the
translations of his poems which appear in this collection.]

Oh, pleasant spring-time flowers
That now display their bloom,
The primrose pale, and cowslip,
Which nature's face illume;
The winter bleak appears
When you bedeck the land,
Like age bent down by years,
With a posy in its hand.

Oh, dulcet spring-time flowers
Sweet honey you contain,
And soon the swarming beehive
Your treasure will retain;
The busy bee's low humming
Is heard among your leaves,
Like sound of distant hymning,
Or reaper 'mid the sheaves.

Oh, balmy spring-time flowers,
The crocus bright and rose,
The lily sweet and tulip,
Which bloom within the close:
Anoint the passing breezes
Which sigh along the vale,
And with your dulcet posies
Perfume the evening gale.

Oh, wild-grown spring-time flowers
That grow beside the brook,
How happy once to ramble
Beneath your smiling look,
And of you form gay garlands
To deck the docile lamb,
In wreaths of colour'd neck-bands,
Beside its loving dam.

Oh, pretty spring-time flowers
None look so blithe and gay,
While dancing in the breezes
Upon the lap of May,