86 
EARLY YOUTH. 
infancy. Poor girl! you will learn that those 
pleasures are mingled with bitterness and 
tears. The arrival of the primrose announces 
them to thee to-day ; hut it also tells thee 
that the happy period of infancy can never 
return. Alas ! in a few years you will say, 
when observing the early primrose, the days 
of love and of youth are fled never to return. 
-In dewy glades 
The peering primrose, like sudden gladness, 
Gleams on the soul — yet unregarded fades — 
The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness. 
H. COLERIDGE. 
This plant has been sung by many of our 
best poets, but by none so well as he from 
whose delightful poems we have already quoted 
at the commencement of this article. The 
following lines are extracted from a piece ad¬ 
dressed to a friend with an early primrose: — 
Accept this promise, friend ; it is a pledge 
Of the returning spring. What, though the wind — 
The dread east wind, pass’d o’er the shivering earth, 
And shook from his deep rustling wings the snows, 
And bound the streamlets and the rivers all 
In crystal fetters ! What, though infancy, 
And age, and vigorous manhood, felt the blast 
Before which many a human blossom fell! 
Yet our fine Devon, in a sunny nook, 
Cherish’d this flower; and when the soft west wind 
Came with its balmy breath and gentle showers, 
With simple grace this first-born of the year 
Waved its pale yellow star; and, lo! for thee 
I plucked the welcome stranger. 
