196 
NATURE STUDY 
tinged with the pink that had not yet faded from the 
cheeks of the fair young Puritan girl as she knelt lovingly 
over these flowers in that spring of 1621 and called them 
mayflowers, thinking all the while of the old English thorn, 
the good ship that brought her to this shore, and the fidel¬ 
ity which could alone sustain. Every spring, she looked 
for a renewal of her strength with the coming of the may- 
flowers. 
The anemones have surprised the passer-by; the fern 
roots have waved aloft their crosiers; the 3^ellow violets 
have not bloomed unseen; even the sober sweet fern has 
done its best; the marsh marigolds have glistened in the 
run, and the nodding hepaticas, rising from a bed of chest¬ 
nut leaves, have fairly laughed at us out of their darling 
blue and purple cups. 
While the message of the Easter tide summoned the 
vast woods and fields, it also called a homely clod under 
shelter of a friendly spruce, and there has come forth a 
flower, no more welcome than the rest, but I pause and 
wonder if there were ever anything more chaste and spirit- 
uelle, though it lies bleeding from its broken stalk upon 
my hand. A strange occurrence, that seems to make the 
plucking of this flower inhuman. Was there some human 
clay incarnate in its perfect form and purity ? A grue¬ 
some thought, and yet, again, how beautiful! It might 
be true. It has been sung 
“ that never blows so red 
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled.” 
In the wanderings of JEneas, as he landed upon the shores 
of Thrace, thinking to build there a city, he prepared to 
offer sacrifice, breaking large twigs from the cornel thick¬ 
et near by. To his dismay, drops of blood fell to the 
ground, and upon repeating the act, the voice of Polydorus 
cried out to him, “ Spare me, iEneas ! I am your kins- 
