POETRY OF FLOWERS. 73 
Oh ! welcome ! as a friend! I cried, 
A friend thresgh many a season tried, 
And never sought in vain, 
When May, with Flora at her side, 
Is dancing on the plain. 
Sheltered by Nature’s graceful hand 
In briery glens, o’er pasture land 
The fairy tribes we meet, 
Gay, in the milk-maid’s path they stand, 
They kiss her tripping feet. 

From winter’s farm-yard bondage freed, 
The cattle bounding o’er the mead, 
Where green the herbage grows, 
Among thy fragrant blossoms feed, 
Upon thy tufts repose. 
Tossing his fore-lock o’er his mane, 
The foal, at rest upon the plain, 
Sports with thy flexile stalk; 
Yet stoops his little neck in vain 
To crop it in his walk. 
Where thick thy primrose blossoms play, 
Lovely and innocent as they, 
O’er coppice, lawns and dells, 
In bands the village children stray 
To pluck thy honied bells; 

