236 
Clover. 
“May the blights of disunion no longer remain, 
Our shamrock to wither, its glories to stain; 
May it flourish for ever, we Heaven invoke, 
Kindly shelter’d and fenced by the brave Irish oak! ” 
Bees delight in the sweet-scented blossoms of what Tennyson 
aptly calls the 
“Rare ’broidery of the purple clover,” 
and obtain a plentiful supply of honey from its blushing lips: 
during the autumn months the cheering hum of these “musical 
hounds of the fairy king,” as hither and thither they busily flit 
over their floral forest, and “ hunt for the golden dew,” is a most 
delightful, gladsome melody. 
Walter Thornbury, one of our most picturesque writers—a 
poet who paints pictures with words better than many of our 
artists do with colours—has the following dainty lyric, repre¬ 
sentative of “ In Clover : ” 
“There is clover, honey-sweet, 
Thick and tangled at our feet; 
Crimson-spotted lies the field, 
As in fight the warrior’s shield 
Yonder poppies, full of scorn, 
Proudly wave above the com. 
There is music at our feet 
In the clover, honey-sweet. 
“You may track the winds that blow 
Through the corn-fields as they go ; 
From the wheat, as from a sea, 
Springs the lark in ecstacy. 
Now the bloom is on the blade, 
In the sun and in the shade. 
There is music at our feet 
In the clover, honey-sweet. 
This little plant is endowed with several strange properties, 
not the least singular of which is the fact that if moorlands in 
the north of England, and some parts of North America, are 
turned up for the first time, and strewed with lime, white clover 
springs up in abundance, typifying to the wondering farmer 
promise of future bounteous crops. No satisfactory solution 
of this circumstance has yet been propounded. The sponta¬ 
neous coming up of this flower is deemed an infallible indication 
of good soil. Every one knows all the wonderful things and 
brilliant future promised to the finder of a four-leaved sham¬ 
rock ! Dear reader, may you be that favourite of Fortune ! 
The Druids held the clover in great repute, deeming it, it is 
supposed, a charm against evil spirits. Hope was depicted by 
the ancients as a little child standing on tiptoe, and holding 
one of these flowers in his hand. What an exquisite allusion 
to promised pleasures was that! 
