Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/33

 As I have often done, high in the love

Of the young tyro of the spade and rake

Look at the eager joyousness and pride

With which the choicest of the little store

Are plucked and offered you. The reddest rose—

The tallest pink—and, treasure beyond all,

The matron daisy and her circling brood,

"The hen and chickens." How I love the glance

Of exultation that comes with the gift!

And wish, aye, from my very soul, that each

Young school-immured being could so learn

From Nature's glorious book her marv'lous works—

Pedants might lose their slaves, but worlds win men.

And are not the earliest gift of love?

Do they not, mutely eloquent, oft speak

For absent or for trembling hearts, and bear

Kisses and sighs on their perfumèd lips—

And worlds of thought and fancy in their leaves

Touched by the rainbow's dyes? Have ye ne'er prized

Some token-flower—an early rose—a bunch

Of young Spring's first and sweetest violets, culled

And given into yours by hands so dear,

That all Flowers seemed grown holier from that time?

Have ye ne'er hoarded such a simple gift—

Aye, through long years—e'en when each shrunken leaf

Bore not a semblance to the thing it was,

And the soft fragrance that had once been there