57 
the light blossoms of the wild strawbeny gem the banks with 
their small silvery stars ! while above them the hawthorn gently 
waves its branches in the soft breeze, enwreathed and loaded 
with clustering sivarms of flowers. 
Speaking their perfume to the tell-tale air. 
Who, gently whispering, will gaily go, 
And all around the fragi'ant message bear. 
Come, let us rest this hawthorn-tree below. 
And breathe its luscious fragrance ere it flies, 
And watch the tiny petals as they fall. 
Circling and winnowing down our sylvan liall. 
Shook from the full-flowered spray by quiv’ring wing 
Of some gay bird, up-rushing to the skies 
Its wild out-pouring melody to sing. 
Exulting in its joy.* 
The pink hawthorn is an elegant and brilliant ornament to 
the lawn or shrubbery, and forms a beautiful kind of raspberry- 
and-cream contrast to the white ; but our affection is for the 
hedge-row hawthorn, the ti'ue “ May,” whose lavish wealth of 
flowers and fragrance in Spring adds to our lovely scenery a 
chai'in peculiarly English. 
All our true poets love this generous wayside friend; Shak- 
speare, in Henry IV., says— 
Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade 
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep 
Than doth a rich embroider’d canopy 
To kings, that fear their subjects’ treachery ? 
* From an unpublished Foem by tlie Author. 
I 
