40 



THE DANDELION. 



EEK we now, in the crannies of old 

 ?j ruins, and among the crevices of 

 I untrodden pavements, for the dan- 

 delion, that cheerful-looking flower, which 

 none except young children care to gather, 

 because it is so common ; and yet it covers, 

 as with a carpet of the richest verdure 

 those deserted spaces, where once thronged 

 the great, the noble, and the gay, in days 

 when the now roofless walls rung with the 

 minstrel's strain. It tlirives too, before the 

 door-ways of the humblest dwellings, and 

 seems to welcome the miserable to enter ; 

 and there, also, it may be seen in tufts, 

 among the interstices of the lichen-dotted 

 walls, or bending occasionally from ofi" the 



