


86 EARLY YOUTH. 
is spread over her face, her heart languishes, 
and she sighs, scarce knowing why. She has 
been told that, as spring succeeds to winter, so 
the pleasures of love follow those of 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 ; but 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. 
——EIn 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 therivers all 
In crystal fetters ! What, though infancy, 
And age, and vigorous manhood, felt the blast 
Before which many a human blossom fell ! 
