HEATHER LAYS. 



It better loved the bleak wild wind 



Which blew upon the Highland hill, 



And for the rocky heath it pined 



Though tended both with care and skill ; 



An exile on a stranger strand, 



It languished for its native land. 



O, if the heather had but grown, 



And bloomed upon a foreign scene, 

 Its owner had not felt alone, 



Though a sad exile he had been. 

 But when he marked its early death, 



He thought that, like his mountain flower. 

 Withered beneath a foreign breath, 



He soon might meet his final hour, 

 And die a stranger and alone, 

 Unwept, unpitied and unknown. 

 -Anne Pratt, in "Flowers and Their Associations." 



Heath 



Oft have I marked thee, Heather, blooming free, 



When care and culture came not, on the wild, 

 And deemed thou wert too beautiful to be 



Left in the desert like a thing exiled ; 



Then have I brought thee where the garden smiled 

 With many a blossom not more lovely graced: 



But thou wert Freedom's own her darling child, 

 And when in trim enclosure fondly placed 

 Wouldst languish soon, and die, mourning thy native 

 waste. 



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