RANUNCULUS. 305 



he delights in celebrating wild flowers. It is a curious 

 fact, that notwithstanding the polished beauty of garden 

 flowers, poetry generally prefers to celebrate the wild. 

 The following is a pretty rustic picture : 



" Before the door, with paths untraced, 

 The green-sward many a beauty graced ; 

 And daisy there, and cowslip too, 

 And butter-cups of golden hue, 

 The children meet as soon as sought, 

 And gain their wish as soon as thought; 

 Who oft I ween, the children's way, 

 Will leap the threshold's bounds to play, 

 And, spite of parent's chiding calls, 

 Will struggle where the water falls, 

 And 'neath the hanging bushes creep 

 For violet-bud and primrose-peep. 

 And sigh with anxious eager dream 

 For water-blobs * amid the stream ; 

 And up the hill-side turn anon, 

 To pick the daisies one by one; 

 Then, anxious, to their cottage bound, 

 To show the prizes they have found, 

 Whose medley flowers, red, white, and blue, 

 As well can please their parents too ; 

 And, as their care and skill contrive, 

 In flower-pots many a day survive." 



VILLAGE MINSTREL, &c. vol. i. page 76. 



He has, in the same volume, another pretty description 

 of flower-gathering, which may find a place here : 



" Some went searching by the wood, 



Peeping 'neath the weaving thorn, 

 Where the pouch-leaved cuckoo-bud f 

 From its snug retreat was torn. 



* Marsh Marygolds. 



f Clare's cuckoo-buds are neither the lady's-smock nor the king- 

 cup ; neither does he mean the ragged-robin, for that is here expressly 

 distinguished from them : probably he means the arum, or lords and 

 ladies. 



