108 NATURE AND THE POETS. 



longs alone to our two white violets, Viola blanda 

 and Viola Oanadensis. 



Neither is it quite true that 



" Of all her train, the hands of Spring 

 First plant thee in the watery mould." 



Now it is an interesting point, which really is our 

 first spring flower. Which comes second or third is 

 of less consequence, but which everywhere and in all 

 seasons comes first ; and in such a case the poet must 

 not place the honor where it does not belong. I have 

 no hesitation in saying that throughout the Middle 

 and New England States, the hepatica is the first 

 spring flower. 1 It is some days ahead of all others. 

 The yellow violet belongs only to the more northern 

 sections, to high, cold, beechen woods, where the poet 

 rightly places it, but in these localities if you go 

 to the spring woods every day you will gather the 

 hepatica first. I have also found the claytonia and 

 the colt's-foot first. In a poem called " The Twenty- 

 Seventh of March " Bryant places both the hepatica 

 and the arbutus before it : 



" Within the woods 



Tufts of ground-laurel, creeping underneath 

 The leaves of the last summer, send their sweets 

 Upon the chilly air, and by the oak, 

 The squirrel cups, a graceful company, 

 Hide in their bells, a soft aerial blue " - - 



ground-laurel being a local name for trailing arbutus, 

 called also May-flower, and squirrel-cups for hepatica* 

 or liver-leaf. But the yellow violet may rightly di 

 oute for the second place. 



1 Excepting, of course, the skunk-cabbage. 



