152 
THE POETRY OF FLOWERS 
MATERNAL LOVE. 
A TUFT OF MOSS. 
J. J. Rousseau was ardently fond of the study of botany- 
and of all plants the family of mosses delighted him most. He 
would often remark that they gave an air of youth and fresh¬ 
ness to our fields, adorning nature when flowers had vanished 
The stunted stems of dead and leafless trees are oft clad with a 
mossy verdure. 
Like to those friends whose affection ceases not when mis- 
fortune assails us, and whose kind services even ingratitude 
cannot repel, the mosses, exiled from cultivated fields, advance 
toward the barren and untilled land, which they cover with 
their own substance, and by degrees transform it into a fruitful 
soil. In winter it is said that they are charged with hydrogen 
and carbon, so as to infect the air; but in summer, beds” of 
moss are formed in the umbrageous shades of forests and plant¬ 
ations, where the shepherd, the lover, and the poet, are equally 
delighted to repose; and we may add, with Carrington the 
traveller too: 
Here, traveller, rest thee, for the sun is high, 
And thou art old and weary. It is sweet 
To find, at noon, a moorland bank like this, 
To press its luxury of moss, and bid 
The hours fleet by on burning wing. Awhile 
Repose thou in the shade, this stunted tree 
Grasped by the choking ivy —of his race 
The last —has foliage yet enough to screen 
Thine ardent brow; and just below, a brook, 
Fresh from the ever-living spring, presents 
Ite purest crystal to thy lip. 
The little birds use the delicate moss in the formation of 
their nests. Is this instinct? Yea, truly the instinct of ma¬ 
ternal care, and maternal tenderness, implanted by nature in 
