EARLY FLOWERS. 103 



of lustre to similar grounds. When the elm, the red 

 maple, the different willows, and the tremulous poplar, 

 with its purplish aments, happen to be gi-onped together 

 in front of an evergreen wood, the April sun looks down 

 upon a scene of varied beauty not surpassed by the 

 floral spectacles that glisten under the brighter beams 

 of the summer solstice. 



We have to lament in this climate the absence of 

 many beautiful flowers, which are associated in our 

 minds with the opening of spring, by our familiarity 

 with English literature. We search in vain over our 

 green meads and sunny hill-sides for the daisy and the 

 cowslip, which, like so many gems from heaven, span- 

 gle the fields in Great Britain, and gladden the sight of 

 the English cottager. We have read of them until 

 they seem like the true tenants of our own fields ; and 

 when on a pleasant ramble we do not find them, there 

 seems to be a void in the landscape, and the fields seem 

 to have lost their fairest ornaments. Thus poetry, 

 while it inspires the mind with sentiments that con- 

 tribute largely to the sum of our happiness, often binds 

 our affections to objects we can never behold and shall 

 never caress. The daisy and the cowslip are remem- 

 bered in oui" reading as the bright-eyed children of 

 spring ; and they emblemize those little members of our 

 former family circle, of whom we have heard but have 

 never seen, who exist only in the pensive history of the 

 youthful group whose numbers are imperfect without 

 them. 



In our gardens alone do we find the pensive snow- 

 drop, the poetic narcissus, the crocus, and the hyacinth. 

 There only is the heartsease, or tricolored violet, which 

 equally adorns the fresh chaplets of April, and blends 

 its colors with the brown sheaves of October. There 



