Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/352

 MARCH, AT DENMARK HILL. 327

And for the blessed balm it breathed,

And for its cheering ray, When from the garden of my heart

I was so far away,

And for the fragrance of its flowers,

And for its fruitage sweet, I 11 love the soil of Denmark Hill,

While memory holds her seat.

��It was at the pleasant spot, which has given a subject to the foregoing poem, about four miles from London, on the sunny side of the Thames, that I first learned to consider the month of March other than a season of wild winds, or a codicil to old Winter s will and tes tament. There I saw with surprise, as early as its second week, the primrose and violet, the polyanthus and hepatica, blooming in the parterres ; and rhubarb, brocoli, cauliflowers, and other esculents, vigorously flourishing in the kitchen-gardens.

On returning from France, in January, we were struck with the superior verdure of England, whose ever-living hedges scorned the livery of Winter. Still the degree of cold, though far less severe than what we had been accustomed to feel at home, was rendered more disagreeable, and probably more hurtful, by its combination with humidity. This excess of moisture, causing even the trunks of trees to grow green and mossy, united, as it often is, with a murky, misty atmos-

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