He A TH. 
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neglect to splendour. Every one remembers that Pope marks 
it with contempt, at the same time that he celebrates the colour 
of the flowers : 
“ E’en the wild heath displays its purple dyes.” 
Until within the last few years, scarcely half a dozen varieties 
were known, and now they are reckoned by hundreds. They 
are all beautiful, and the flowers range in hue from a purple- 
tinged rose to pure white. 
Eliza Cook has entwined some of her ever-happy lines 
around this sweet symbol of solitude : 
“Wild blossoms of the moorland, ye are very dear to me; 
Ye lure my dreaming memory as clover does the bee; 
Ye bring back all my childhood loved, when freedom, joy, and health 
Had never thought of wearing chains to fetter fame and wealth. 
Wild blossoms of the common land, brave tenants of the earth, 
Your breathings were among the first that helped my spirit’s birth; 
For how my busy brain would dream, and how my heart would burn, 
Where gorse and heather flung their arms above the forest fern. 
******** 
“ Who loved me then? Oh, those who were as gentle as sincere, 
Who never kiss’d my cheek so hard as when it own’d a tear. 
Whom did I love? Oh, those whose faith I never had to doubt; 
Those who grew anxious at my sigh and smiled upon my pout. 
What did I crave? The power to rove unquestion’d at my will; 
Oh, wayward idler that I was!—perchance I am such still. 
What did I fear? No chance or change, so that it did not turn 
My footstep from the moorland coast, the heather, and the fern. 
“ Methinks it was a pleasant time, those gipsy days of mine, 
When youth with rosy magic turn’d life’s waters into wine; 
But nearly all who shared those days have pass’d away from earth, 
Pass’d in their beauty and their prime, their happiness and mirth. 
So now, rich flow’rets of the waste, I ’ll sit and talk to ye, 
For memory’s casket, fill’d with gems, is open’d by your key; 
And glad I am that I can grasp your blossoms sweet and wild, 
And find myself a doter yet, a dreamer, and a child.” 
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