MAY 



TOI 



can possibly desire. The beautiful pale-blue Anemone 

 apennina is now nodding its little blue heads under my 

 big trees. In the far-away days of my childhood it 

 must have been in the 'Forties a really typical man-of- 

 the-world presented my mother with four well-bound 

 volumes of Mrs. Hemans' poems. Imagine any man 

 giving such a present now ! And yet she wrote some 

 pretty things, of which the following is a specimen, and 

 certainly it is quite as good as many modern flower- 

 poems : 



TO THE BLUE ANEMONE 



Flower of starry clearness bright, 

 Quivering urn of coloured light, 

 Hast thou drawn thy cup's rich dye 

 From the intenseness of the sky ? 

 From a long, long fervent gaze 

 Through the year's first golden days 

 Up that blue and silent deep 

 Where, like things of sculptured sleep, 

 Alabaster clouds repose 

 With the sunshine on their snows ? 

 Thither was thy heart's love turning, 

 Like a censer ever burning, 

 Till the purple heavens in thee 

 Set their smile, anemone ? 



Or can those warm tints be caught 



Each from some quick glow of thought ? 



So much of bright soul there seems 



In thy bendings and thy gleams, 



So much thy sweet life resembles 



That which feels and weeps and trembles, 



I could deem thee spirit-filled, 



As a reed by music thrilled ; 



When thy being I behold 



In each loving breath unfold, 



Or, like woman's willowy form, 



Shrink before the gathering storm, 



I could ask a voice from thee, 



Delicate anemone. 



