346 FLORA DOMESTICA. 



Or warped, as we, 

 Who think it strange to see 

 Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young, 

 To speak by tears before ye have a tongue. 



Speak, whimpering younglings, and make known 

 The reason why 

 Ye droop and weep : 

 Is it for want of sleep, 

 Or childish lullaby ? 

 Or that ye have not seen as yet 

 The violet ?" 



The poems of Clare are as thickly strown with Primroses 

 as the woods themselves ; the two following passages are 

 from the Village Minstrel : 



" Oh, who can speak his joys when spring's young morn 



From wood and pasture opened on his view ; 

 When tender green buds blush upon the thorn, 

 And the first primrose dips its leaves in dew ! 



" And while he plucked the primrose in its pride, 



He pondered o'er its bloom 'tween joy and pain ; 

 And a rude sonnet in its praise he tried, 



Where nature's simple way the aid of art supplied." 



In another poem, after describing the village children 

 rambling over the fields in search of flowers, he continues : 



" I did the same in April time, 

 And spoilt the daisy's earliest prime ; 

 Robbed every primrose-root I met, 

 And oft-times got the root to set ; 

 And joyful home each nosegay bore, 

 And felt as I shall feel no more*." 



There is something very touching in the following lines 

 written upon the death of a beloved wife, in childbirth : 



" Who would have said, my love, when late through this 

 Romantic valley, we from bower to bower 

 Went gathering violets and primroses, 



* Village Minstrel, &c. vol. i. page 76. 



