61 
THE PERIWINKLE. 
EMBLEM OF TENDER RECOLLECTIONS. 
Flowers of the field! how meet ye seem 
Man’s frailty to pourtrav; 
Blooming so fair in moming’s beam, 
Passing at eve away. 
Teach this, and oh ! though brief your reign, 
Sweet flowers, ye shall not live in vain. 
Go, form a monitory wreath 
For youth’s unthinking brow; 
Go, and to busy manhood breathe 
What most he fears to know ; 
Go, strew the path where âge doth tread, 
And tell him of the silent dead. 
Moral of Flowers. 
It is difficult to trace the origin of some of the 
various uses to which flowers hâve been applied, parti- 
cularly as assistants in superstitious ceremonies; and 
our surprise is often excited at the sélection of obscure 
plants for such purposes. The most remarkable of 
these seems to be the insignificant vervain, whose power 
m air and on earth was deemed unlimited. Not only 
was it believed to countçract the poison of venomous 
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