FERNS. 47 



As Silence loves to hear, the passing wind, 



Or the lone murmuring of the scarce-heard stream." 



We come up, said the common brake, on every heath, 

 and wood, and waste, throughout your fatherland ; grouping 

 beside your pathways, and embellishing those healthy and 

 windy ranges which the wild deer love. We shade many a 

 green bank where the snowdrop looks forth from her green 

 vest, on the streamlet edge, when the throstle begins her 

 song. Not bursting forth in all our fulness, like the winter 

 aconite, that suddenly emerges from out the damp, cold 

 earth, earliest herald of the spring; but gradually unfolding 

 and enlarging, and spreading forth our leaves simultaneously, 

 as creation emerges from her winter sleep. 



" When bees are stirring, birds are on the wing, 

 And winter, slumbering in the open air, 

 Wears on his smiling face a dream of spring," 



then it is that the bleak rock seems as if suddenly covered 

 with extraneous verdure ; that dreary and exposed wastes, 



