PRIMROSE. 
61 
and was thus styled in commemoration of a youth so 
named, who pined away with grief for the loss of his 
betrothed, Melicerta, and was metamorphosed into 
“ The rathe primrose that, forsaken, dies.” 
It has been observed of poor Clare that his poems 
are as thickly strewn with primroses as the woodlands 
themselves. In his “ Village Minstrel "’ he sings : 
“ Oh, who can speak his joys when Spring’s young morn 
From wood and pasture opened on his view, 
When tender green buds blush upon the thorn, 
And the first primrose dips his leaves in dew ? 
“ And while he plucked the primrose in its pride, 
He pondered o’er its bloom ’tween joy and pride, 
And a rude sonnet in its praise he tried, 
Where nature’s simple way the aid of art supplied.” 
In another place he tells how, as a child, he rambled 
o’er the fields for flowers, and 
“ Robbed every primrose-root I met, 
And ofttimes got the root to set; 
And joyful home each nosegay bore ; 
And felt—as I shall feel no more.” 
In the following lines the old poet, Browne, associates 
this flower with a scene of rustic idle thoughtlessness: 
“ As some wayfaring man, passing a wood, 
Goes jogging on, and in his mind naught hath, 
But how the primrose finely strews the path.” 
And the sketch is suggestive of Wordsworth’s oft- 
quoted idea in “ Peter Bell: ’ 
“ A primrose by a river’s brim 
A yellow primrose was to him, 
And it was nothing more.” 
