94 CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 



Spies in his hand some baneful flower or weed, 

 Whereon he 'gins to smell, perchance to feed, 

 With a more earnest haste she runs to him 

 And pulls them from him." WILLIAM BROWNE. 



Who can look upon the above picture, 

 limned by the hand of one of Britain's sweetest 

 pastoral poets, without having the tenderest re- 

 collections awakened within him, of a parent, 

 now perchance sleeping in the cold church-yard, 

 or if not so, divided from him by a wide gulph 

 of worldly cares and interests, no longer exer- 

 cising a judicious control over his actions ; no 

 longer with a firm yet gentle hand, pulHng from 

 him the baneful weeds of folly, and flowers, 

 beautiful in appearance, and endued with fra- 

 grancy, but fraught with a subtle poison, 

 which pleasure scatters over the pathway of 

 man, luring him to tarry in her voluptuous 

 bowers, and steep his soul in sensual delights, 

 whereafter come repentance and vain self-re- 

 proach, for precious time thus idly squandered, 

 and opportunities irrevocably lost. 



