WILD FLOWERS 
125, 
natuie ; aiid the scent of its blossoms often produces head- 
ache « Upon the whole, it may be said of the leguminous 
family of plants that there is not a more wholesome or 
serviceable tribe known to man. 
Wild Flowers. 
Why is it that I love the flowers 
That grow in woods, and lanes, and fields, 
Better than all the glowing ones 
The richly cultured garden yields? 
Why is it that the daisy has 
A charm for me all flowers above; 
Or why the hawthorn’s fragrant breath 
More than the myrtle’s do I love? 
The cuckoo-flower and hyacinth. 
Those blossoms of each woodland wild, — 
The primrose and anemone. 
O, I have prized them from a child ! 
And still the odours that arise 
From clusters of the wild woodbine, 
Are sweeter, lovelier to me, 
Than scent of Eastern jessamine. 
And yet, the flowers I prize so much. 
Than cultured flowers are not more sweet,. 
And they are withered sooner far 
Than those we in the garden meet; 
Their colours are not half so gay 
As tints of flowers from far-off land. 
From Isle of Greece, or Indian grove. 
Nurtured by man with careful hand. 
But meadow-flowers bring to my mind 
The thoughts of pleasant days gone by. 
When with my sisters, hand in hand, 
¥/e roamed beneath the summer sky ; 
And twined a garland for our hats, 
Of blossoms from each bush around. 
And linked the daisies into chains, 
And culled the cowslips from the ground. 
