378 WILD FLOWERS. 



Wie laut im hellen Sonnenstrahl 

 Die suissen Voglein allzumal " * 



when the blossoms, and the tender green leaves 

 come stealing so timidly forth, and the sunshine 

 gladdens the heart, and fills it with that nameless 

 feeling of care-free happiness which the Welsh lan- 

 guage expresses by the single word, moeldesota, 

 signifying "to be merry on account of the sun- 

 shine." It is then (to borrow a beautiful expres- 

 sion from the same language) that despite every 

 material cause for depression, we feel gwynfydedig ; 

 that is, we feel the world is white to us ; we are 

 happy, we are in a state of beatitude, ( sensible of 

 the power of enjoyment which finds food for itself 

 in that calm appreciation of little things, which 

 after all constitute so great a part of our earthly 

 happiness. And who is there amongst us who 

 would not rather be that governor of Pisa, who 

 employed the guard of soldiers at his command to 

 keep night-watch over the flower-covered jasmine 

 which he considered his greatest treasure, than that 

 haughty Guise whose dislike to the rose was as 

 unconquerable as his human sympathies were nar- 

 row.J 



The old English name of fel-wort evidently 

 takes its name from the bitterness of the whole 

 plant ; though, with an etymological zeal strongly 

 pervading our ideas, we might, perhaps, be tempted 



* Goethe. 



t Thus we say gwyn eifyd, " happy is he," that is. " white 

 is the world to him." 

 J See page 240. 



