WILD FLOWERS OF MARCH. 95 



are now actual indications of activity in sound and 

 motion, so that even the admirers of nature's beauties 

 only, who take a walk at this season, cannot fail to be 

 roused into poetical excitement by the return of those 

 appearances which are bound up with the remem- 

 brances of former days. Three things at least now in 

 turn speak to the eye, the ear, and the senses. In 

 the balmy freshness of morning the hoarse cooing of 

 the Ringdove, or Quice, sounds singularly plaintive 

 upon the ear. Called into life by a steady burning 

 ray of light, up springs to allure, amuse, and surprise 

 the charmed eye, a carmine-coloured or sulphur-winged 

 butterfly, oscillating about Like a primrose floating 

 before the wind ; and, oh ! delicious excitement, the 

 perfume of the March violet becomes sensibly percep- 

 tible. 



" Smell at my Violets !" ah, indeed, their smell at 

 once recalls a thousand blissful hours of early life, 

 when the holiday afternoon was devoted to violeting 

 in the wild sequestered lane or solitary wood-side, and 

 when thoughts, and hopes, and joys, were beautiful 

 and odorous as the countless white and purple violets 

 opening in beauty on the sides of the bosky dingle, as 

 yet undimmed and unwithered by the constant action 

 of burning suns. Where are the hopes and joys of 

 early life now ? alas, man has his violet season but 

 once only ! 



" Smell at my violets !" yes, but we must first 

 find out where they are, and these " lowliest children 

 of the ground," are often difiicult to get at, though 

 the fragrance they diffuse around is so very obvious. 

 Do'nt tell me of the garden ; I must now have genu- 

 ine wild violets these were the charmers of my early 



