



501 WILD FLOWERS OF DECEMBEE. 



and amidst the dark intertwining skeleton of ramifi- 

 cation, there is the rough outline that shall shape the 

 future picture of frondescence. Thought and hope 

 revives in like manner ; the scenes we have pictured 

 and the rambles we have taken may seem for a time 

 to lose their colours and be bare as the December 

 bough, but awakened memory robes them again. 



By mountain, haunted stream, or sacred grove, still 

 will our foot-steps stray as the vales are strewed with 

 flowerets or the seasons take their wonted round, nor 

 can storm or flood turn us from our purpose to mora- 

 lize along the cowslip-scented or leaf-strown path, 

 We have plucked roses in the sunny bower, " babbled 

 o' green fields" by the river's copsy brink, we have 

 whispered instruction on the lonely shore, and (start 

 not fair ones) murmured of love in the moonlit hazel 

 walk. Mowers may fade and summer-days may wane, 

 but the wreath we have here gathered is a perennial 

 one, that will revive month after month, in after 

 years, like the undying moss at the touch of moisture 

 whenever it is applied to at the proper season. 

 Our researches in the fields with nature will remain 

 then in the memory, ever ready to be appropriated 

 when the voice of Spring, or a sound or thought of 

 landscape poetry wakens exploration up again in our 

 minds. 



Printed by BAILY & JONES, Cirencester. 





