Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/120

62 blessed country, and the acquisition of a cluster of bright wild flowers, glittering with nature's gems of dew.

Spring is cerainlycertainly [sic] the season of England's greatest beauty. The vine-wreathed Autumn of southern climes may, and must be, rich and rare; but we will not envy them while our own dear Land has her fairy-like realm of orchards in blossom, and in loveliness, as in fame, is a queen indeed. What can be more luxuriantly picturesque than the appearance of the world of Flowers which our cider counties display at this season? Indeed, the small garden orchards attached to road-side cottages all over England are gems of beauty. The various tints and texture of the blossoms, from the pure white of the pear and cherry to the deep rose-coloured buds of the apple and crab, and the young delicate green of the just opening leaves, do truly seem like a festal robe worn by the joyous earth in honour of the Spring-time. The Broom too, "the bonny, bonny Broom," waves it slender sprays in the soft breeze, and we look from the gay, gold-coloured butterfly-blossoms it bears on the walls, to the small and more delicate white ones of the gardens, and know not which are most beautiful. The Guelder Rose trees look as if overburthened with their globes of silvery flowers; and the aromatic Syringo breathes afar off her delicious perfume, which emulates in sweetness, as her flowers do in beauty, the famed orange blossoms of southern lands.