156 WILD FLOWERS OF 



trate before disease or despair ; while yielding to the 

 excitation of the brilliant scene, we may exclaim with 

 AMBROSE PHILLIPS 



" Have ye seen the broider'd May 

 All her scented bloom display, 

 Breezes opening ev'ry hour 

 This and that expecting flower, 

 While the mingling birds prolong 

 From each bush the vernal song ? " 



"May Flowers" are proverbial, but where shall we 

 look for them ? on the bold sides of the majestic 

 Silurian Malverns, from whence the pear-trees of 

 Worcestershire and the apple-trees of Herefordshire 

 in their rival blooms of stainless white and rose, pre- 

 sent a sight the world cannot equal ? there, taking 

 in the way the broken and wooded limestone heights 

 of Cowleigh and Cradley, with friends ardent and 

 curious, hath been oft our quest.* Shall we pluck 

 May flowers beside the gravelly torrent of the roman- 

 tic Usk, or on the huge "Black Mountains" that flank 

 its lovely valley with their frowning barrier ? there 

 we have been. Shall we look down on the bright 

 plain of Salop, and from the craggy bladder-stone of 

 the famed WreJcin trace them in the green woods that 

 fill the romantic hollow between that hill and the long 

 Edge of Wenlock, the silvery horseshoes of the Severn 

 gleaming lovely amidst the foliage ? there we have 

 been. Shall we trace them by the beauteous Medway 

 amidst its deep woods between Rochester and Maid- 

 stone ; or slumber as we once slumbered in life's 

 seeming fair but inexperienced morn among the 



* My "Botany of the Malvern Hills" (published by Boo UE, London, 

 and LAMB, Malvern,) can be consulted for the plants there. 



