CLOVER. 
251 
“ Tho’ jovial and festive in seeming excess, 
We’ve hearts sympathetic of others’ distress. 
May our shamrocks continue to flourish, and prove 
An emblem of charity, friendship, and love. 
“ May the blights of disunion no longer remain, 
Our shamrock to wither, its glories to stain ; 
May it flourish for ever, we Heaven invoke, 
Kindly sheltered and fenced by the brave Irish oak !” 
Bees delight in the sweet-scented blossoms of what 
Tennyson aptly calls the 
“ Rare ’broidery of the purple clover.” 
Walter Thornbury has given us the following pretty 
lyric, “ In Clover 
“ There is clover, honey-sweet, 
Thick and tangled at our feet; 
Crimson-spotted lies the field, 
As in fight the warrior’s shield : 
Yonder poppies, full of scorn, 
Proudly wave above the corn. 
There is music at our feet 
In the clover, honey-sweet. 
“ You may track the winds that blow 
Through the cornfields as they go; 
From the wheat, as from a sea, 
Springs the lark in ecstacy. 
H ow the bloom is on the blade, 
In the sun and in the shade. 
There is music at our feet 
In the clover, honey-sweet.” 
The Druids held the clover in great repute, deeming 
it, it is supposed, a charm against evil spirits. Hope was 
depicted by the ancients as a little child standing on 
tiptoe, and holding one of these flowers in his hand. 
