prtmrost. 21 
Ask me why I send you here 
This firstling of the infant year; 
Ask me why I send to you 
This Primrose all bepearled with dew: 
I straight will whisper in your ears, 
The sweets of love are washed with tears. 
Ask me why this flower doth show 
So yellow, green, and sickly too; 
Ask me why the stalk is weak 
And bending, yet it doth not break: 
I must tell you these discover 
What doubts and fears are in a lover. 
Thomas Carew. 
By the soft green light in the woody glade, 
On the banks of moss where thy childhood played, 
By the household tree through which thine eye 
First looked in love to the summer sky; 
By the dewy gleam, by the very breath 
Of the Primrose-tufts in the grass beneath, 
Upon thy heart there is laid a spell, 
Holy and precious—oh, guard it well! 
Yes ! when thy heart in its pride would stray 
From the first pure loves of its youth away; 
When the sullying breath of the world would come 
O’er the flowers it brought from its native home; 
Think thou again of the woody glade, 
Of the sound by the rustling ivy made; 
Think of the tree at thy father’s door, 
And the kindly spell shall have power once more. 
Mrs. Hemans. 
