176 WILD FLOWERS. 



We have thus endeavored to defend our 

 beloved friends, the flowers, from the charge of 

 disdaining to serve, by showing the true service 

 which they render to man ; and now, let us 

 give a companion picture to the one above ; 

 it is from " Nina Sforza :" 



" I late was passing by a poet's door, 

 Who, on his windoiv-sill, with wasted care, 

 Had placed a hungry shrub for light a want 

 That crowded quarter miserly supplied ; 

 A wild field-rose it was ; it may be slippe 

 As sweet remembrance of his wanderings ; 

 'Twas withering fast, yet, 'midst its dry, curl'd leaves, 

 One sickly bud had struggled into bloom. 

 That bud, so pale, so common, fix'd my step ; 

 I thought it priceless, and, except for shame, 

 Had very gladly stolen away a leaf; 

 I, whose court-life had ever been perfumed 

 With every rarest flower that we know. 

 Now, think you, 'twas the rose-bud that I saw ? 

 Believe it not ! It was the poet's soul 

 Diffused by mental magic, over all 

 Which environed the proud connection of his nam 

 R. Z. S. TROUGHTOX. 



" Better," says ourmost delightful of essayists, 

 LEIGH HUNT, " better hang a wild rose over the 

 toilet, than nothing. The eye that looks in the 



