XXII PREFACE. 



them ; and ask your own heart if they do not speak affec- 

 tion, benevolence, and piety. None have better under- 

 stood the language of flowers than the simple-minded 

 peasant-poet, Clare, whose volumes are like a beautiful 

 country, diversified with woods, meadows, heaths, and 

 flower-gardens : the following is a pleasing specimen : 



" Bowing adorers of the gale. 

 Ye cowslips delicately pale. 



Upraise your loaded stems ; 

 Unfold your cups in splendour, speak ! 

 Who decked you with that ruddy streak. 

 And gilt your golden gems ? 



" Violets, sweet tenants of the shade. 

 In purple's richest pride arrayed. 



Your errand here fulfil ; 

 Go bid the artist's simple stain 

 Your lustre imitate, in vain. 



And match your Maker's skill. 



" Daisies, ye flowers of lowly birth. 

 Embroiderers of the carpet earth. 



That stud the velvet sod ; 

 Open to spring's refreshing air, 

 In sweetest smiling bloom declare 



Your Maker, and my God *." 



This poet is truly a lover of Nature : in her humblest 

 attire she still is pleasing to him, and the sight of a simple 

 weed seems to him a source of delight : 



" There 's many a seeming weed proves sweet. 

 As sweet as garden-flowers can be t." 



In his lines to Cowper Green, he celebrates plants that 

 seldom find a bard to sing them; having enumerated 

 several, he continues ; — 



" Still thou ought'st to have thy meed. 

 To show thy flower as well as weed. 



* Clare's Village Minstrel and other Poems, vol. ii. page 61. 

 t Clare's Poems on Rural Life, &c. page 63. 



