114 WILD FLOWERS OF 



The sun breaks forth Oh ! now's the time to take 



The rural ramble, and behold in blow 

 Vetch with its pendants pink, and Stichwort's braids of snow. 



Cuckoo ! a thousand extacies awake, 



A thousand recollections at the cry ; 



April's green woods, the golden gorsy brake, 



Young Speedwell blinking with his azure eye, 



And tipt with orange bands, the butterfly ! 



Cuckoo Cuckoo ! the echoing hill renews 



The swift-returning cadence lost on high : 



Lost, 'midst a labyrinth of bloom and dews 

 Gone like the fleeting joys that perish as we use. MS. 



How exciting and animating it is at this period, on 

 a fine calm and balmy morning, to wander amidst 

 the mossy stones of some sequestered upland wood 

 adorned with Cherry trees in full blossom, amongst 

 whose branches the Willow Wren is warbling, or the 

 Titlark circling about and descending with reiterated 

 song, while a pattering stream is plunging with re- 

 peated splashing and gurgling far down within the 

 gloomy ravine, and at profound depth below, shining 

 and sparkling in the sunbeams, a silver river frets 

 and foams amidst rocky fragments, till beyond their 

 barrier it spreads a chrystal line of brilliance amidst 

 the emerald meadows. Or if even only roaming list- 

 lessly by the high road, still as the sunbeams blaze 

 upon a length of hedge where the Blackthorn (Prunus 

 spinosa) has encamped, and now puts forth its crowded 

 clusters white as a snow-drift along the side of a hill, 

 it is impossible not to pause and admire their lovely 

 aspect ; while almost certainly the Wliitetliroat is 

 sure to be seen sporting in and out of the silvery 

 efflorescence, as if anxious to compare its white chin 

 with the sloe-flowers, or feeling that they offered an 

 admirable shelter for its slender and delicate form. 



