POETRY.
HORTULUS HORTULORUM. MY friend the Professor of Culture Has a garden fit for a queen, Set with all flowers of Europe, And some Oriental between.
A fine dome of glass its heaven, (If a heaven were needed) would be ; And the wall has a few gilt gratings, That the crowd its wonders may see.
But his friends are welcome to enter, And share in the gardener's toil ; And 'tie easier to pluck the flowers, As they have no roots in the soil.
And if it had bloodd last summer, And if next summer could bloom, We should ask for no better Eden For "jumping the life to come."
The gardener's skill is more striking, On this patch of sand, that of late Was heap'd by the flood subsiding, His Paradise so to create.
And his blossoms may shine for a season, Though they have no roots in the soil ; And they yield a delicious acid To refresh the sage at his toil.
But the sandy bottom defies him, And uuderlies all the plot ; And the torrent is mining the garden, While he carols, and heeds it not.
The dread inartistic problems, The yearnings and twilights of life, He cuts and casts out as he saunters With his delicate pruning-knife.
And one thing his exquisite Culture, One only, ignores, we fear ;
That obstinate Whence and Whither Which dogs us from cradle to bier. That obstinate Whence and Whither Which dogs us from cradle to bier.
F. T. P.
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