;.v >-':..-. 



* f * '.- /'*< ' 



xxii PREFACE. 



them ; and ask your own heart if they do not speak affec- 

 tion, benevolence, and piety. None have better under- 

 stood the language of flowers than the simple-minded 

 peasant-poet, Clare, whose volumes are like a beautiful 

 country, diversified with woods, meadows, heaths, and 

 flower-gardens : the following is a pleasing specimen : 



. ,***'- if ** a *"* 



" Bowing adorers of the gale, 

 Ye cowslips delicately pale, 

 Upraise your loaded stems ; 





Unfold your cups in splendour, speak ! 



* *. J. ' i. 



Who decked you with that ruddy streak, 

 And gilt your golden gems ? 



" Violets, sweet tenants of the shade, 

 In purple's richest pride arrayed, 



Your errand here fulfil ; 

 Go bid the artist's simple stain 

 Your lustre imitate, in vain, 



And match your Maker's skill. 



" Daisies, ye flowers of lowly birth, 

 Embroiderers of the carpet earth, 



That stud the velvet sod ; 

 Open to spring's refreshing air, 

 In sweetest smiling bloom declare 

 Your Maker, and my God *." 



fr * 1j ^ 



This poet is truly a lover of Nature : in her humblest 

 attire she still is pleasing to him, and the sight of a simple 

 weed seems to him a source of deljght : 



" There 's many a seeming weed proves sweet, 

 ^ t * , As sweet as garden-flowers can be t." 



In his lines to Cowper Green, he celebrates plants that 

 seldom find a bard to sing them; having enumerated 

 several, he continues ; 



, ^ " Still thou ought'st to have thy meed, 

 To show thy flower as well as weed. 



* Clare's Village Minstrel and other Poems, vol. ii. page 61. 

 t Clare's Poems on Rural Life, &c. page 63. 



