THE POETRY OE FLOWERS. 
Milton makes the flowers generally thus pay sad 
homage to his lost Lycidas :— 
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use, 
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, 
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks; 
Throw hither all your quaint enamell’d eyes, 
That on the green turf suck the honey’d showers, 
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. 
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, 
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jassamine, 
The white pink, and the pansy freak’d with jet, 
The glowing violet, 
The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, 
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, 
And every flower that sad embroidery wears : 
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, 
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, 
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. 
Mrs. Hemans has expressed, in a fine sonnet from 
“ Thoughts during Sickness,” the obligations we owe 
to the floral tribe :— 
Welcome, 0 pure and lovely forms, again 
Unto the shadowy stillness of my room ! 
For not alone ye bring a joyous train 
Of Summer-thoughts attendant on your bloom— 
G 
