i5\3; 
bosom of Natui'e, needing- no adventitious aid or cai-e to pi-otcct and perfect its development. Who 
would compare the song of the Robin or the Linnet, the Blackbird or the Thrush, or any of oui- forest 
birds, " warbling their native wood-notes wild," with the domesticated cage-birds from foreign climes ? 
Not that we by any means undervalue them. No imprisonment can eradicate the principle which 
Nature has implanted in the heart. Hence Wordsworth, in that charming poem addressed to liberty — 
which, we imagine, every true poet knows by heai't — asks : — 
" Who can cli\'inc what impulses of God 
Ecach the caged Lark within his town abode, 
From his poor inch or two of daisied sod .' 
Oh, yield him back Ins privilege ! No sea 
SwcUs Uke the bosom of a man set free ! — 
A wilderness is rich with hberty !" 
And it is this very mountain air of liberty which throws a charm over those Wild-flowers which have 
been so frequently deified in the j)oet.'s song. 
But wliithcr will the pm'suit of them lead us ? Truly, beyond the smoke and din of busy capitals, 
and even the hum of distant villages. WUd flowers seem to love solitude and shade ; and oftentimes 
tempt us into obscure and almost inaccessible spots. Nevertheless, they spring up everywhere. They 
may be seen enamelling the green sward which sm-roimds the aristocratic mansion ; but they sliine not 
less sweetly under the Uttle hedge-row which bounds the garden of the lowly husbandman. They may 
be seen straggling witlun the clefts of sea-gu't rocks, and trembling by the side of roaring waterfalls ; 
— but they bloom not less abundantly along the banks of " the mill-stream that melts along the lea." 
They invite also more serious and melancholy associations. They may be observed ghstening through 
the ivy- leaves, on the top of many a ruined tower ; and they spring uj) almost suddenly, and with 
supernatural quickness, amid the blades of grass upon every newly-raised and vii-giu grave : — 
" Lay her in the eai-th, 
And from her fah and impoUutod flesh 
May violets spring !" 
exclaims Laertes over the grave of poor Ophelia. Fm-thermorc be it observed, that the most simple 
and humble of our Wild-flowers are protected by the same Omnipotent hand wliich " tempers the wind 
to the shorn lamb." They are born, they hve, they fade away, and so fulfil their destiny : — 
" The reckless shower 
That weighs too heavily upon the Lily's silver head, 
Stm leaves a saving moistiu-e at its roots," 
and it revives. Its simple resuscitation is an affecting type of the immortality of man. 
Again, what happy, serene, and blessed thoughts may not WUd- flowers suggest ? The un - 
thinking, the unfeeling, the uneducated — humanity's dull clowns — may pass them heedlessly by, or 
gaze unconsciously upon them, as they tramjile them in the dust : — 
" A Primrose by the river's brim, 
A simple Prinu'ose was to him. 
And it was nothing more ;" 
but, to the spiritual eye, they reveal deeper meanings, which throw a peculiar colom'ing o'er the past, 
the present, and the future. One of our most amiable and sensitive of modern poets, who familiarised 
his youthful mind, and fervently sjanpatliised with the beauties of natm-e, and who died, unhappily, 
before the star of his genius may be said to have risen in the ascendant — Keats — was a devoted lover of 
Wild-flowers. In his life, recently published by Monckton Miles — a charming volume, which cannot be 
read otherwise than with intense interest, by all true lovers of poetry — we are informed that the young 
poet told his friend Severn, that " he thought the intensest plcasm-e ho had received in life, was in 
watching the growth of flowers ;" and, another time, after lyuig awhile, still and peaceful, on his last 
sick-bed, he said, "I feel the flowers growing over me ;' ' and " there they do grow," adds his 
biographer, " even all the winter long, Violets and Daisies minghng with the herbage ; and, in the 
words of Shelley, "making us in love with death, to tliink that one should be buried in so sweet a 
place." But Wild-flowers suggest not only melancholy thoughts, albeit, there may in such " be fomid 
a power to virtue friendly." They come forth as graceful hand-maidens of the Spring ; they deck with 
wreaths of puiity the brow of innocence, and diadem the bride. Flowers ! WUd-flowers ! let us love and 
cherish them ; not only for the sake of theu' own sweet fragrance and simxdo beauty, but because they 
are suggestive of thoughts and feelings wluch lead us onwards and upwards, and wind associations 
