I O THE BEAUTIES OF APRIL AND MAY. 



fumes through various vicissitudes and alternations of the 

 season, while others make a transient visit only. 



" I love thee, lone and pensive flower, 



Because thou dost not flaunt thy bloom 

 In pleasure's gay and garnish'd bower, 



Or luxury's proud banquet room ; 

 But on the silent mouldering wall 



Thy clinging leaves a fragrance shed, 

 Or give to the deserted hall 



A relic of its glories fled. 



These wreaths, in vivid freshness bright, 



Methinks the fluttering herd portray, 

 Who bask on fortune's golden light, 

 , And wanton in her joyous way ; 



But thou art like that gentle love, 



Which blooms when friends and fame have pass'd, 

 Towers the dark wreck of hope above, 



And smiles through ruin to the last." 



In favoured climates arises the Anemone, encircled at 

 the bottom with a spreading robe, and rounded at the top 

 into a beautiful dome. In its loosely-flowing mantle, you 

 may observe a noble negligence ; in its gently-bendingttifts 

 the nicest symmetry. This may be termed the fine gentle- 

 man of the garden, because it seems to possess the means 

 of uniting simplicity and refinement, of reconciling art and 

 ease. The same month has the merit of producing the 

 Ranunculus. All bold and graceful, it expands the riches 

 of its foliage, and acquires by degrees the loveliest enamel 

 in the world. As persons of intrinsic worth disdain the 

 superficial arts of recommendation practised by fops, so this 

 lordly flower scorns to borrow any of its excellencies from 

 powders and essences. It needs no such attractions to 

 render it the darling of the curious, being sufficiently enga- 

 ging from the elegance of its figure, the radiant variety of its 

 tinges, and a certain superior dignity of aspect. 



JUNE. 



" Now have young April, and the blue-eyed May, 

 Vanished awhile, and lo ! the glorious June 

 (While Nature ripens in his burning noon.) 

 Gomes like a young inheritor." 



