" Sweet Nursling! withering in thy tender hour, 

 " Oh, sleep," she cries, " and rise a fairer Flower!" 

 So when the plague o'er London's gasping crowds 

 Shook her dank wing, and steer'd her murky clouds; 

 When o'er the friendless bier no rites were read, 

 No dirge slow-chanted, and no pall out-spread; 

 While Death and Night fill'd up the naked throng, 

 And Silence drove their ebon cars along; 

 Six lovely daughters, and their father, swept 

 To the throng'd grave Cleone saw, and wept; 

 Her tender mind, with meek Religion fraught, 

 Drank all-resign'd Affliction's bitter draught; 

 Alive and listening to the whisper'd groan 

 Of others' woes, neglectful of her own, 

 One smiling Boy, her last sweet hope, she warms, 

 Hush'd on her bosom, circled in her arms, 

 Daughter of Woe! ere morn, in vain caress'd, 

 Clung the cold babe upon thy milkless breast ; 

 With feeble cries thy last sad aid requir'd, 

 Stretch'd its stiff limbs, and on thy lap expir'd ! 

 Long with wide eye-lids on her child she gaz'd, 

 And long to heaven their tearless orbs she rais'd, 

 Then with slow step and throbbing heart she found 

 Where Chartreufe open'd deep his holy ground ; 

 Bore her last treasure through the midnight gloom, 

 And kneeling dropt it in the mighty tomb. 



Darwin. 



March 30, the Daisy (Bellis perennis) flowers. 



The date of the appearance of flowers is not very exact, as depending upon many circum- 

 stances but it enables us to assemble together the chief flowers of the spring, as are marked out 

 by poets and to elucidate our comparison of those fiowers to the morning iwihght. Although the 

 common Daisy has a tinge of red in its petals, it is so slight, as only to set off in contrast the 

 more general white appearance. The rustic Caledonian bard thus paints it. 



To a Daisy, on turning one down with the plough in March 1786. 



Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r, 

 Thou's met me in an evil hour; 

 For I maun crush among the stoure 



Thy slender stem; 

 To spare thee now is past my pow'r, 



Thou bonie gem.* 



. How similar is this to the sentiment of our immortal bard Shakspeare on a grander occasion Othello, jealous ot h.s wrffe, the for 

 Desdemona, "solves to kill her. When about to commit the fatal act, upon seeing her, he relinomshes h,s cruel purpose of destrovmg her 

 with the sword he held in his hand, but resolves to smother her 



