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PASQUE-FLOWER. 



r PENING to the changing skies of 

 April sits the wild anemone, or 

 pasque-flower, in her upland so- 

 litude, alone, in all her beauty : for no sister 

 hath she on her long floral stalk. What 

 doeth she there, a solitary flower, now with 

 driving storms and the hollow moaning of 

 wild winds; and now with the rainbow cir- 

 cling over her, and rain drops on the grass 

 around her, glittering and waving in the 

 glorious sunbeams as they struggle through 

 the clouds ? Sitteth she not there as the 

 harbinger of sunbeams and soft showers, 

 noting that the nightingale, sweetest of Bri- 

 tish songsters, is about to build her nest; 

 that the cuckoo and the wryneck, wdth tlie 

 numerous family of swallows, swifts, sand- 



