PRIMROSE. 301 



" What next ? a tuft of evening primroses. 

 O'er which the mind may hover till it dozes ; 

 O'er which it well might take a pleasant sleep. 

 But that 'tis ever startled by the leap 

 Of buds into ripe flowers." 



Keats. 



" The Primrose, when with sixe leaves gotten grace, 

 Maids as a true-love in their bosoms place." 



W. Browne. 



The following lines give a pleasant picture of a kind of 

 idly-musing tranquillity : 



" As some wayfaring man passing a wood 

 Goes jogging on, and in his minde nought hath. 

 But how the primrose finely strew the path. 

 Or sweetest violets lay downe their heads. 

 At some tree's roote on mossie featherbeds." 



W. Browne. 



The poems of Clare are as thickly strown with Prim- 

 roses as the woods themselves ; the two following passages 

 are from the Village Minstrel : 



" O, who can speak his joys when spring's young morn 

 From wood and pasture opened on his view. 

 When tender green buds blush upon the thorn. 

 And the first primrose dips its leaves in dew !" 



" And while he plucked the primrose in its pride. 

 He pondered o'er its bloom 'tween joy and pain ; 

 And a rude sonnet in its praise he tried. 



Where nature's simple way the aid of art supphed." 



In another poem, after describing the village children 

 rambling over the fields in search of flowers, he continues: 



" I did the same in April time. 

 And spoilt the daisy's earUest prime ; 

 Robbed every primrose-root I met. 

 And oft-times got the root to set ; 

 And joyful home each nosegay bore ; 

 And felt— as I shall feel no more*." 



* Village Minstrel, &c. vol. i. page 76. 



