













188 MATERNAL LOVE. 
All lovely colours there you see, 
All colours that were ever seen ; 
And mossy network too is there, 
As if by hand of lady fair 
The work had woven been; 
And cups the darlings of the eye, 
So deep is their vermilion dye. 
Ah me! what lovely tints are these, 
Of olive green and scarlet bright, 
Tn spikes, in branches, and in stars, 
Green, red, and pearly white ! 
Like to those friends whose affection ceases 
not when misfortune assails us, and whose 
kind services even ingratitude cannot repel, 
the mosses exiled from cultivated fields advance 
towards 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 plan- 
tations, 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 
