EDITOR'S TABLE. 



culture, the plants can probably be acclimated to any region, hardly excepting Iceland ; and why 

 is it not more generally cultivated and appropriated ? Without question, for lack of that informa- 

 tion so generally proffered in agricultm-al and horticultural papers. G. A. Meekee. — Jefferson, Pa- 



MEMORIES OF MAY. 



BY THE AUTHOR OF " FOKEST GLEANINGS."' 



" Q. Flowers, wherefore do ye bloom ? 

 A. We strew the pathway to the tomb."— </(7«. 3fontgomenj. 



From earliest childhood to extreme old age flowers form one of our most innocent, as well as 

 most delightful, sources of enjoyment, pure and unsullied by aught of the grossness that mingles 

 with more animal pleasures. The first dawning of our intellectual nature may be dated from the 

 moments when the babe stretches forth its tiny hand to grasp the flowers in its nurse's bosom. 

 Tlie unborn sense of the beautiful in form and color, springs to life in the soul of the child ; it 

 awakens at once to the enjoyments of a new and pleasurable sensation. 



I love to see an innocent child playing with flowers — fresh, fair flowers — meet emblems at once 

 of its beauty and its frailty — for " he cometh up and is cut down as a flower of the field." How 

 charming are the verses of our old English poet, addressed to Daffodils — 



" Fair daffodils we weep to see 

 Thee haste away so soon." 



— and those "To Blossoms." They are so beautiful in their sweet simplicity, that I will quote 

 them, assured that those who know them will re-read with pleasure such lines; and those who 

 never read, will read them again and again, as I have done ever since I was a child. 



TO BLOSSOMS. 

 "Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, 

 "Why do ye fall so fast ? 

 Tour date is not so past 

 But ye may stay yet here awhile, 

 To blush, and sweetly smile, 

 And go at last. 



" What were ye born to be ? 



An hour or half's delight. 



And so to bid good uight? 

 'TIS a pity Nature bro't ye forth 

 Merely to shew your worth — 



Then lose ye quite. 



" Bat ye have lovely leaves, where we 



May read how soon things have 



Their end ; none e'er so brave 

 But after they have shewn their pride, 

 Like us, awhile, they glide 



Into the graTc."— i2oJ/'« Herrick. 



Tlie freshness and spirit of old Izaak Waltox seems to breathe through these lines — and then 

 bis rural poetry recalls the time when maids went Maying, and fairies danced the lea. 



In this work-day, money-making world, we have cast aside, ns old fashioned garments are 

 thrown by, all taste for the simple habits and rural pleasures that marked our ancestors. The 

 dead go to the grave undecked with the flowers which the hand of duteous affection used formerly 

 to lay upon the pulseless heart and clay cold brow. The wreath that used to be sitspended in the 

 — that pure and emblematic hatchment which even yet is hung up by the peasant children 

 ance and Italy — is no longer displayed to tell that one bud or one blossom has dropped 





