MARCH. 99 



For pale as thy leaflets appear, 



And pale as appears thy green coroll, 



Hid snug from the storms of the year, 

 I see in its petals a moral. 



Thou art but a wee-one, tis true, 



And held as unworthy the seeking; 

 Hid under the thicket from view, 



While the trees of the forest are creaking. 



When March stirs the spirits of air, 

 And clouds o'er each other are driving, 



The dingy floods rolling despair- 

 Hope tracks thy unnotic'd arriving ! 



As when, o'er the shadows of night 



Appears the first semblance of dawning, 



How grateful that pledge of the light 

 To illness, awake 'neath its awning. 



So pale though Adoxa presents 



Her form, by the fountain scarce showing ; 



'Tis a signal that winter relents, 



And the Celandine soon will be glowing. 



A blank is to nature unknown, 



There's still an unceasing creation, 

 And down to the lichenized stone, 



All charrn in their time and their station ! 



Who doubts it should open his eyes, 



Once purg'd, they'll reveal unknown wonders; 



So the cloudlet a speck on the skies, 



Joins the throng that embattles the thunders. 



There is another little wild flower, very characte- 

 ristic of the prhnaveral Mora, which never fails to 

 delight the eye of the wandering botanist during 

 March's froward reign, studding a thousand walls and 

 rocks, and hills, with its innumerable silver cruciferous 

 flowers. This is the Draba verna, which from its 

 former fame of curing " the disease of the nailes called 



H2 



