To a Daisy, on turning one down with the Plough.
WEE, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou'st met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem;
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem. Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, The bonnie lark, companion meet! Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet
Wỉ spreckled breast,
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet
The purpling east.
Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm ;
Scarce rear'd above the parent earth
Thy tender form.
The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield,
But thou, beneath the random bield
O'clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble-field,
Unseen, alane. There, in thy scanty mantle clad, Thy snawy bosom sunward spread, Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise ; But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies ! BURNS.
The Wind-flower.
LODGED in sunny cleft,
WHERE the cold breezes come not, blooms alone
The little wind-flower, whose just-open'd eye
Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at
Startling the loiterer in the naked groves
With unexpected beauty, for the time
Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar.
BRYANT.
- The Blue Eyebright.* BLUE Eyebright ! loveliest flower of all that grow In flower-loved England! Flower, whose hedge-side gaze Is like an infant's ! What heart doth not know Thee, cluster'd smiler of the bank! where plays The sunbeam with the emerald snake, and strays The dazzling rill, companion of the road Which the lone bard most loveth, in the days When hope and love are young ? O come abroad, Blue Eyebright! and this rill shall woo thee with an ode.
Awake, blue Eyebright, while the singing wave
Its cold, bright, beauteous, soothing tribute drops
From many a grey rock's foot and dripping cave ;
While yonder, lo, the starting stone-chat hops!
While here the cottar's cow its sweet food crops;
While blackfaced ewes and lambs are bleating there :
And, bursting through the briers, the wild ass stops
Kicks at the strangers—then turns round to stare
Then lowers his large red ears, and shakes his long dark
hair,
ELLIOTT,
To a Snowdrop. LONE Flower ! hemm'd in with snows as white as they, But hardier far, once more I see thee bend Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend, Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day, Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, way-lay The rising sun, and on the plains descend ; Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend Whose zeal outrups his promise! Blue-eyed May Shall soon behold this border thickly set With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers ; Nor will I then thy modest grace forget, Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring, And pensive monitor of fleeting years!
WORDSWORTIT. * The Geornánder Speedwell.
To the Small Celandine.* PANSIES, lilies, kingcups, daisies, Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there's a sun that sets,
Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are violets,
They will have a place in story:
There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the little celandine,
Ere a leaf is on a bush,
In the time before the thrash
Has a thought about her nest,
Thou wilt come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless prodigal;
Telling tales about the sun,
When we've little warmth, or none.
Comfort have thou of thy merit,
Kindly, unassuming Spirit !
Careless of thy neighbourhood,
Thou dost show thy pleasant face
On the moor, and in the wood,
In the lane ;-there's not a place,
Howsoever mean it be,
But 'tis good enough for thee.
On the Night-blooming Cereus.
As the fair flower which shuns the golden day,
And blooms amidst the shades of silent night,
Spreads her pale petals to the lunar ray,
And hails with balmy breath the silver light;
So virtue shuns the world's applause and gaze,
In secret sheds her balmy sweets abroad,
Nor seeks the voice of fame, nor glory's blaze,
But blooms and blossoms to the praise of God!
LADY FLORA HASTINGS. * Common Pilewort.
To the fringed Gentian.
Trou blossom bright with autumn dew,
And colour'd with the heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night.
Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dress'd,
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.
Thou waitest late, and com'st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.
Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue-blue-as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.
I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within the heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.
BRYANT.
DAFFODILS,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty ; violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips, and
The crown-imperial ; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one !
SHAKESPEARE.
The Pilies of the field. FLOWERS ! when the Saviour's calm benignant eye.
Fell on your gentle beauty–when from you
That heavenly lesson for all hearts he drew,
Eternal, universal, as the sky
Then, in the bosom of your purity,
A voice he set as in a temple-shrine,
That life's quick travellers ne'er might pass you by
Unwarnd of that sweet oracle divine.
And though too oft its low, celestial sound
By the harsh notes of work-day Care is drown'd,
And the loud steps of vain, unlistening Haste :
Yet the great ocean bath no tone of power
Mightier to reach the soul in thought's hush'd hour,
Than your's, ye lilies !-chosen thus and graced !
MRS. HEMANS.
To Naftodils.
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together,
We will go with you along.
We have short time to stay as you,
. We have as short a spring ;
As quick a growth to meet decay
As you or any thing:
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain ;
Or as the pearls of morning dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
HERRICK,
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