FORGET-ME-NOT. 
23 
might be from the very bower where he first 
breathed his love into the ear of Eve. 
In spring the green woods of merry England are 
covered with the flowers of the Anemone. Turn the 
eye whichever way you will, there it greets you like 
“ a pleasant thought:” it forms a bed of flowers 
around the foot of the mighty oak, and below the 
tangling brambles, which you may peep between, 
but cannot pass,—there, also, are its pearly blossoms 
bending. The Greeks named it the Flower of the 
Wind, and so plentiful is it in our own country 
that we might fancy the breeze had blown it every¬ 
where. The gaudy Anemone of the garden, the 
emblem of Forsaken Love, is known to all; but 
our favourites are the uncultivated offspring of the 
windy woods, which come long before the broad 
green leaves hang overhead to shelter them. 
The Laurustinus is a beautiful evergreen, bearing 
white flowers ; which, before they become opened, 
have all the richness of the Eose about the colour 
of the buds. Why so hardy a plant was selected 
for the image of Neglected Love we know not, 
unless it be that Love dies a hard death, and is 
difficult to destroy. Milton has found a much more 
poetical image in 
“ The rathe Primrose that forsaken dies,” 
than in the Anemone ; and for the sake of the Bard 
