PRIMROSE. 
75 
“ 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 nought 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.” 
THE PRIMROSE. 
MRS, HEMANS. 
I saw it in my evening walk, 
A little lonely flower ; 
Under a hollow bank it grew, 
Deep in a mossy bower. 
An oak’s gnarled root to roof the cave 
With gothic fretwork sprung, 
Whence jewelled fern, and arum-leaves, 
And ivy garlands hung. 
And close beneath came sparkling out 
From an old tree’s fallen shell 
A little rill that dipt about 
The lady in her cell. 
