FEBRUARY. 73 



All heedless of the wintry cold 

 Inhabits ? Foremost to unfold, 

 Tho' half conceal'd its bloom globose, 

 Whose petals green, o'erlapp'd and close, 

 Present each arch'd converging lip 

 Embroider'd with a purple tip ; 

 And green its floral leaves expand 

 With fingers like a mermaid's hand."* 



It may be worth while, on one of the few sunny after- 

 noons that even February affords, to linger in some 

 little bosky copse open to the west, and rising high 

 above the Severn, whose red brimfull stream proudly 

 breasts the meadows below till it disappears in a 

 broad crescent, gleaming like a scimitar in the sun- 

 beams. The coppice is abundantly overspread with 

 the evergreen leaves of the lesser Periwinkle (Vinca 

 minor}, entangling itself in every direction, and form- 

 ing a grateful object for the eye to rest upon at this 

 leafless time, while here and there the genial warmth 

 has tempted a few of its bright blue flowers to expand, 

 above which Boinbylius medius poises as if fixed in 

 air again to vanish with the vagrant sunbeam. It is 

 gone ! a cloud involves the setting sun, and in a 

 moment shrouds him from view blasts sweep pity- 

 lessly from the north, and bear along a volleyed cloud 

 of snow flakes through the realms of air mountain, 

 wood, valley, and river, alike disappear amidst the 

 blinding storm, and in the succeeding stillness of 

 advanced night, the pale moon faintly shining in a 

 circlet of white cloud, exhibits fields, woods, and 

 hills, again invested with the soft, pure, and dazzling 

 ermined robe of winter. 



* MANT'S British Months. 



