Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/115

57 the light blossoms of the wild strawberry gem the banks with their small silvery stars! while above them the hawthorn gently waves its branches in the soft breeze, enwreathed and loaded with clustering swarms of flowers,

The pink hawthorn is an elegant and brilliant ornament to the lawn or shrubbery, and forms a beautiful kind of raspberry-and-cream contrast to the white; but our affection is for the hedge-row hawthorn, the true "May," whose lavish wealth of flowers and fragrance in Spring adds to our lovely scenery a charm peculiarly English.

All our true poets love this generous wayside friend; Shakspeare, in Henry IV., says—