AND FLOWERS OF POETRY. 
173 
Of the lofty daffodil 
Make your bed and make your bower) 
Fill your lap and fill your bosom; 
Only spare the strawberry-blossom! 
Primroses, the spring may love them, 
Summer knows but little of them. 
Violets, a barren kind, 
Withered on the ground must lie; 
Daisies leave no fruit behind, 
When the pretty flowerets die; 
Pluck them, and another year 
As many will be growing here. 
God has given a kindlier power 
To the favoured strawberry-flower: 
When the months of spring are fled, 
Hither let us bend our walk; 
Lurking" berries, ripe and red, 
Then will hang on every stalk, 
Each within its leafy bower; 
And for that promise spare the flower. 
It is, however, most delightful to find the fruit of the straw¬ 
berry, at all seasons of the year, amid the glaciers of the lofty 
Alps. When the sunburnt traveller, oppressed with fatigue up¬ 
on those rocks, which are as old as the world, in the midst of 
those forests, half destroyed by avalanches, he vainly seeks a 
hut to rest his weary limbs, or a fountain to refresh himself. 
Unexpectedly, he sees, emerging from the midst of the rocks, 
troops of young girls who advance toward him with baskets of 
perfumed strawberries; they appear on all the heights above, 
and in every dell below. It seems as though each rock and 
each tree were kept by one of these nymphs, as placed by Tas¬ 
so at the gate of the enchanted gardens of Armida. As sedu¬ 
cing, though less dangerous, the young Swiss peasants, in offer¬ 
ing their charming baskets to the traveller, instead of retarding 
his progress, give him strength to pursue his journey. The 
strawberry has the property of not undergoing the acetous fer¬ 
mentation in the stomach. The learned Linnaeus was cured of 
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