168 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE CHAP. 



tered flowers, or sheets of colour due to one or 

 two species, but in gardens one glory follows 

 another. Here are brought together all the 



quaint enamelled eyes, 



That on the green turf sucked the honeyed showers, 

 And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. 

 Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, 

 The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, 

 The white pink and the pansy freaked with jet, 

 The glowing violet, 



The musk rose, and the well attired woodbine, 

 With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, 

 And every flower that sad embroidery wears. 1 



We cannot, happily we need not try to, 

 contrast or compare the beauty of gardens 

 with that of woods and fields. 



And yet to the true lover of Nature wild 

 flowers have a charm which no garden can 

 equal. Cultivated plants are but a living 

 herbarium. They surpass, no doubt, the 

 dried specimens of a museum, but, lovely as 

 they are, they can be no more compared with 

 the natural vegetation of our woods and fields 

 than the captives in the Zoological Gardens 

 with the same wild species in their native 

 forests and mountains. 



1 Milton. 



