GRASS AND GREEJJ THINGS. 9 



hide the rough nakedness of the earth, and veil its rugged face with 

 lustre and beauty. No sooner does the black mountain-peak peer up 

 above the ocean's breast, than the grasses hurry there upon the chariot 

 of the wind, and cover it all over with a delicious green. The grim 

 rock that frowns upon the foam is torn asunder by its roots, and its 

 ledges and turrets made lovely by its leaves. The green meadows, 

 swelling like seas of plenty into waves of verdure, are indebted to it 

 for all their store of green, and for the flowers and feathered flutterers 

 which find a home amongst its sprays. The old orchards need its 

 velvet mounds and dimpled hollows, in order that the luscious fruits 

 they fling to earth may fall unhurt on its soft pillows ;• and man, the 

 possessor and monarch of the earth, looks complacently on its merry 

 face, and feels that it links him to his home. 



Is it only for its velvet softness, and the round pillowy knolls it 

 heaves up in the vistas of the greenwood, that the weary and the 

 dreamer find it so sweet a place of rest ? or is it because the wild 

 bee flits around its silvery panicles, and blows his bugle as he goes 

 with a bounding heart to gather sweets ; that the hare and the rabbit 

 burrow beneath its smooth sward ; that the dear lark cowers amid its 

 sprays, and cherishes the children of his bosom under its brown 

 matted roots ; that the daisy, the cowslip, the daflTodil, the orchises — 

 the fairies of the flower world — the bird's-foot trefoil — the golden- 

 fingered beauty of the meadows, the little yellow and the large straw- 

 berry trefoil, are all sheltered and cherished by it, and that one of its 

 simple children* scents the air for miles with the sweetest perfume 

 ever breathed by man? If only for its fresh green hue, let the 

 dreamer love it, let him lie thereon — 



Vnder ye curtaine of ye greenwoode shade, 

 Beside ye brooke vpon ye velvet gras.t 



And if thou, O reader, hast any nobler hope imprisoned in thy heart 

 than that of cooking partridges, or measuring tape ; if thou hast not 

 exchanged the Druid's harp for bell-metal, nor suffered thy heroism 

 to sink into hypocrisy, go out into the green wilderness, lie down 

 upon the cushion of the grass, and pillow thy head upon its virgin 



* Anthoxanthum Odoratus, or sweet-scented vernal grass, gives the peculiar 

 rich aroma to the hay. 



t Godfrey of Boulougne, B. x., s. 64. 



