Welcome, sweet flowers! bright Summer's poetry! I hail your fragrant coming, and again With joy I read your brilliant imagery Written once more in nature's holiest strain: The lowly cottage, and the princely hall Your advent cherisheth--ye are all to all. Rising in glory from their winter graves, The painted Tulip comes, and Daisy fair, And o'er the brook the fond Narcissus waves Her golden cup--her image loving there. Those early flowers their glowing tributes bring To weave a chaplet round the brow of Spring. The sultry sun of June looks down, and then Comes forth the lovely rose, the garden's pride, To herald summer over glade and glen, O'er wild and waste, o'er mead and mountain side: Proudly she rears her crest on high, the vain And gay pursuivant of a brilliant train. And now, bright Dahlia, heartless one, appear! Thy time has come to join the festival: Come, Peru's daughter, belle of night! dost fear To wear in glorious day thy coronal? And thou, pale exile from the holy land, Imperial Lily! come and join the band! See, o'er the lattice creeps the Eglantine, And there the Jasmine clambers up the wall To twine her wreaths with Flora's blushing queen, Rejoicing all in summer's carnival: How kind of them to deck the shepherd's cot, And with their presence cheer his humble lot! I love ye, flowers; your odors ever bring Back visions of the past: I love ye well; From the lone Primrose, nursling of the Spring, Unto the beauteous Aster, Autumn's belle, Or reared on verdant field, or ruined wall, I love ye all, sweet flowers!--I love ye all! THE LEGEND OF DON RODERICK. NUMBER THREE. The scattered fugitives of the Christian army spread terror throughout the land. The inhabitants of the towns and villages gathered around them as they applied at their gates for food, or laid themselves down, faint and wounded, beside the public fountains. When they related the tale of their defeat, old men shook their heads and groaned, and the women uttered cries and lamentations. So strange and unlooked-for a calamity filled them with consternation and despair; for it was long since the alarm of war had sounded in their land: and this was a warfare that carried chains and slavery, and all kinds of horrors, in its train. Don Roderick was seated with his beauteous queen, Exilona, in the royal palace which crowned the rocky summit of Toledo, when the bearer of ill-tidings came galloping over the bridge of the Tagus. 'What tidings from the army?' demanded the king, as the panting messenger was brought into his presence. 'Tidings of great wo!' exclaimed the soldier. 'The prince has fallen in battle. I saw his head and surcoat upon a Moorish lance; and the army was overthrown and fled!'