SUGGESTIONS OF A BROOMSTICK. 



I am sent with broome before 



To sweep the dust behind the doore, 



Mid. N. Dream. 



Sunshine prosper thee, sweet lady-birch ! Softest of dews and holiest of 

 showers fall upon thy tasselled sprays and trembling foliage, and ruddiest 

 of morning glances break upon thy silver bark ! And thou, bonny 

 broom, hiding thyself in the moorland hollows, how many belted bees 

 have visited thy ringlets since the spring began ? how many wanderers 

 hath thy perfume solaced ? over how many aching heads hast thou 

 shook thy rushy branches, hushing the lone wayfarer into Elysian 

 dreams as he lay on the pliant moss beneath thee ? It is in the green- 

 est of glens and the mossiest of woody nooks that broomstaffs flourish, 

 — on the healthiest of wild moorlands that the bonny broom comes to 

 birth. Blue and golden flowers watch over them in infancy, and 

 bearded oaks bend above their lusty youth. A broomstick ! Are 

 " proper people" shocked at the suggestion — to them, of the vileness 

 and scullery refuse which the broom is used to sweep away ? no mat- 

 ter, — what is mere fuel to them shall be philosophy to us ; and with 

 the reverent stump of a superannuated besom before us, we will let 

 the caprice have its course, and see for once what suggestions may 

 come from a broomstick. 



Were you ever young ? — of course you were, and made your first 

 triumph before family friends by trotting, full speed, into the midst of 

 little Jemima's muslin friends astride a broomstick, and had at least 

 a hundred kisses from dear old Granny, who sat in the corner, and 

 vowed it was vulgar to trot broomsticks in doors, while she secretly 

 loved you all the more for it. There, too, was the old Captain, in his 

 skull-cap, and barnacles, and purple nose, who gloried in a romp, and 

 yet, for fear of offending the young ladies, suffered innumerable pangs 

 when he said, "Charley, you're a naughty boy, sir ! " Well, that 

 time has gone into the land of memory, and the broomstick is the 

 only talisman tc summon its pictures to the present. 



