HOLY FLOWERS. 
BY MART HOWITT. 
Mindful of the pious festivals which our church pre¬ 
scribes, I have sought to make these charming objects of 
floral nature, the time-pieces of my religions calendar, and 
the mementoes of the hastening period of my mortality. 
Thus I can light the taper to our Virgin Mother on the 
blowing of the white snow-drop, which opens its floweret 
at the time of Candlemas; the lady’s smock, and the 
daffodil, remind me of the Annunciation; the blue hare¬ 
bell, of the Festival of St. George; the ranunculus, of the 
Invention of the Cross; the scarlet lychnis, of St. John 
the Baptist’s day; the white lily, of the Visitation of our 
Lady; and the Virgin’s bower, of her Assumption; and 
Michaelmas, Martinmas, Holyrood, and Christmas, have 
all their appropriate monitors. I learn the time of day 
from the shutting of the blossoms of the Star of Jerusalem 
and the Dandelion, and the hour of the night by the stars. 
A Franciscan. 
Ah ! simple-hearted piety, 
In former days such flowers could see. 
The peasant, wending to his toil. 
Beheld them deck the leafy soil; 
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