GARDENS, WREATHS, &c. 
33 
INVITATION TO FLOWERS. 
BARTON. 
Come forth, ye lovely heralds of the Spring! 
Leave, at your Maker’s call, your earthly bed; 
At his behest your grateful tribute bring 
To light and life, from darkness and the dead! 
Thou, timid Snow-drop , lift thy lowly head; 
Crocus and Primrose , show your varied dye; 
Violets , your ceaseless odours round you shed, 
Yourselves the while retiring from the eye, 
Yet loading with your sweets each breeze that passes by. 
And you, — in gay variety, that grace, 
In later months, with beauty the parterre, 
“Making a sunshine in the shady place,” 
As Una and her milk-white Lamb were there; 
Arise! Arise! and in your turns declare 
The power of Him who has not only made 
The depth of Ocean, and the heights of Air, 
And Earth’s magnificence, — but has display’d 
In you that power and skill, with beauty’s charms array’d. 
Uplift, proud Sun-flower, to thy favourite Orb 
That disk whereon his brightness loves to dwell; 
And, as thou seem’st his radiance to absorb, 
Proclaim thyself The Garden’s Sentinel; — 
And thou, too, gentle, modest Heather-bell, 
Gladden thy lonely birth-place:— Jasmines, spread 
Your star-like blossoms, fragrant to the smell; — 
