WILD FLOWERS. 187 
own words, but in those of a sister of song. It 
is that they are fraught with,— 
“ Sweet memories of that blissful time, 
Life’s day-spring ! lovelier than its prime, 
When with the bird on summer morn. 
That carolled earliest from the thorn, 
I was awake, and singing too. 
And gathering wild flowers wet with dew.” 
Caroline Bowles. 
A writer in the Quarterly Review observes 
thus : “ One characteristic of our native plants 
we must mention, that if we miss in them some¬ 
thing of the gorgebusness and lustre of more 
tropical flowers, we are more than compensated 
by the delicacy and variety of their perfume ; 
and just as our woods, vocal with the nightin¬ 
gale, the blackbird, and the thrush, can well 
spare the gaudy feathers of the macaw, so we 
can consign the oncidiums, and cactuses, and 
the impomieas of the tropics, for the delicious 
fragrance of our wild banks of violets, our lilies- 
of-the-valley, our woodbine, or even the passing 
whiff of a hawthorn bush, a clover or begn field, 
or a gorse common.” Yes we can well spare 
