PASQUE-FLOWER. 179 



The pulpy acorn, as it swells, contains 

 The oak's vast branches in its milky veins ; 

 Each ravell'd bud, fine film, and fibre line 

 Traced with small pencil on the small design : 

 Grain within grain successive harvests swell, 

 And boundless forests slumber in a shell." 



Three imperishable agents, pervading alike 

 the majestic frame of man, as the smallest 

 blade of grass ; ministering to the green- 

 ness of the hills, and the blue mistiness 

 of the distant mountains, are essential to 

 the development of seeds. Atmospheric 

 air, heat, and moisture, are everywhere dis- 

 coverable. Oxygen gas, likewise, an ingre- 

 dient in our atmosphere, is absorbed by 

 seeds in vegetating. Hence, to cite a fa- 

 miliar instance, it happens not unfrequently, 

 that if lettuce-seed is sown in separate pots 

 of earth, the one open to the air, the other 

 in the exliausted receiver of an air-pump, 

 the seeds contained in the former soon be- 



