Floral Poetry. 
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HEATH. 
When the wild bee comes with a murmuring song, 
Pilfering sweets as he roams along, 
I uprear my purple bell : 
Listening the freeborn eagle’s cry, 
Marking the heath-cock’s glancing eye, 
On the mountain side I dwell. 
The echoes yet the notes prolong, 
When one, who oft o’er hill and dell 
Had sought the spots where flowerets dwell, 
And knew their names and functions well, 
And could of all their changes tell, 
Thus answered to their song : 
“ Loveliest children of earth, 
Of more than each rainbow hue, 
Of beauty coeval with birth, 
And fragrance found only in you ! 
“ O ! that like you I could live, 
Free from all malice and strife, 
That each thought and each pulse I could give 
To the beautiful Giver of Life. 
“ Until earth shall wax old and decay, 
You shall ever triumphantly shine, 
And on leaf and on petal display 
The work of an Artist Divine.” 
Robert Patterson. 
