it might teach a lesson to the desponding, and show the useless and inactive how in valuable are the stirrings of that energy that can work out its purpose in secret, and under oppression, and be ready in the fulness of time to make that purpose manifest and complete. The snowdrop teaches also another lesson. It marks out the progress of time. We cannot behold it without feeling that another spring has come, and immediately our thoughts recur to the events which have occurred since last its fairy bells were expanded. We think of those who were near and dear to us then. It is possible they may never be near again; it is equally possible they may be dear no longer. Memory is busy with the past; until anticipation takes up the chain of thought, and we conjure up, and at last shape out in characters of hope, a long succession of chances and changes to fill up the revolving seasons which must come and go before that little flower shall burst forth in its loveliness again. Happy is it for those who have so counted the cost of the coming year, that they shall not find at the end they have expended either hope or desire in fruitless speculations. It is of little consequence what flower comes next under consideration. A few specimens will serve the purpose of proving, that these lovely productions of nature are, in their general associations, highly poetical. The primrose is one upon which we dwell with pleasure proportioned to our taste for rural scenery, and the estimate we have previously formed of the advantages of a peaceful and secluded life. In connexion with this flower, imagination pictures a thatched cottage standing on the slope of the hill, and a little woody dell, whose green banks are spangled all over with yellow stars, while a troop of rosy children are gambolling on the same bank, gathering the flowers, as we used to gather them ourselves, before the toils and struggles of mortal conflict had worn us down to what we are now; and thus presenting to the mind the combined ideas of natural enjoyment, innocence, and rural peace-the more vivid, because we can remember the time when something like this was mingled with the cup of which we drank-the more touching, because we doubt whether, if such pure drops were still there, they would not to our taste have lost their sweetness. The violet, while it pleases by its modest, retiring beauty, possesses the additional charm of the most exquisite of all perfumes, which, inhaled with the pure and invigorating breezes of spring, always brings back in remembrance a lively conception of that delightful season. Thus, in the language of poetry, "the violet-scented gale" is synonymous with those accumulated and sweetlyblended gratifications which we derive from odours, flowers, and balmy breezes; and above all, from the contemplation of renovated nature, once more bursting forth into beauty and perfection. The jessamine, also, with its dark green leaves, and little silver stars, saluting us with its delicious scent through the open casement, and impregnating the whole atmosphere of the garden with its sweetness, has been sung and celebrated by so many poets, that our associations are with their numbers, rather than with any intrinsic quality in the flower itself. Indeed, whatever may have first established the rank of flowers in the poetical world, they have become to us like notes of music, passed on from lyre to lyre; and whenever a chord is thrilled with the harmony of song, these lovely images present themselves, neither impaired in their beauty, nor exhausted of their sweetness, for having been the medium of poetic feeling ever since the world began. It is impossible to expend a moment's thought upon the lily, without recurring to that memorable passage in the sacred volume: "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." From the little common flower called heart's ease, we turn to that well known passage of Shakspeare, were the fairy king so beautifully describes the "little western flower." And the forget-me-not has a thousand associations tender and touching, but unfortunately, like many other sweet things, rude hands have almost robbed it of its charm. Who can behold the pale Narcissus, standing by the silent brook, its stately form reflected in the glassy mirror, without losing themselves in that most fanciful of all poetical conceptions, in which the graceful youth is described as gazing upon his own beauty, until he becomes lost in admiration, and finally enamoured of himself: while hopeless echo sighs herself away into a sound, for the love, which having centred in such an object, was never to be bought by her caresses, nor won by her despair. Through gardens, fields, forests, and even over rugged mountains, we might wander on in this fanciful quest after remote ideas of pleasurable sensation connected with present beauty and enjoyment; nor would our search be fruitless so long as the bosom of the earth afforded a receptacle for the germinating seed, so long as the gentle gales of summer continued to waft them from the parent stem, or so long as the welcome sun looked forth upon the ever-blooming garden of nature. One instance more, and we have done. The "lady rose," as poets have designated this queen o beauty, claims the latest, though not the least consideration in speaking of the poetry of flowers. In the poetic world, the first honors have been awarded to the rose, for what reason it is not easy to define; unless from its exquisite combination of perfume, form, and colour, which have entitled this sovereign of flowers in one country to be mated with the nightingale, in another, to be chosen with the distinction of red and white, as the badge of two honourable and royal houses. It would be difficult to trace the supremacy of the rose to its origin; but mankind have so generally agreed in paying homage to her charms, that our associations in the present day are chiefly with the poetic strains in which they are celebrated. The beauty of the rose is exhibited under so many different forms, that it would be impossible to say which had the greatest claim upon the regard of the poet; but certainly those kinds which have been recently introduced, or those which are reared by unnatural means, with care and difficulty, are to us the least poetical, because our associations with them are comparatively few, and those few relate chiefly to garden culture. around us through the summer months, without the aid or interference of man, which seems to defy his art to introduce a rival to his own unparalleled beauty-the common wild rose; so luxuriant, that it bursts spontaneously into blushing life, sometimes crowning the hoary rock with a blooming garland, and sometimes struggling with the matted weeds of the wilderness, yet ever finding its way to the open day, that it may bask and smile, and look up with thankfulness to the bright sun, without whose rays its cheek would know no beauty so tender, that the wild bee which had nestled in its scented bosom when that sun went down, returns in the morning and beholds the colour faded from its cheek, while by its side an infant rose is rising with the blush of a cherub, unfolding its petals to live its little day, and then, having expended its sweetness, to die like its fair sisters, without murmur or regret. Blooming in the sterile waste, this lovely flower is seen unfolding its fair leaves where there is no beauty to reflect its own, and thus calling back the heart of the weary traveller to thoughts of peace and joy-reminding him that the wilderness of human life, though rugged and barren to the discontented beholder, has also its sweet flowers, not the less welcome for being unlooked for, nor the less lovely for being cherished by a hand unseen. There is one circumstance connected with the rose, which renders it a more true and striking emblem of earthly pleasure than any other flower-it bears a thorn. While its odorous breath is floating on the summer gale, and its blushing cheek, half hid amongst the sheltering leaves, seems to woo and yet shrink from the beholder's gaze, touch but with adventurous hand the garden queen, and you are pierced with her protecting thorns: would you pluck the rose and weave it into a garland for the brow you love best, that brow will be wounded: or place the sweet blossom in your bosom, the thorn will be there. This real or ideal mingling of pain and sorrow, with the exquisite beauty of the rose, affords a neverending theme to those who are best acquainted with the inevitable blending of clouds and sunshine, hope and fear, weal After all the pains that have been taken to procure, transplant, and propagate the rose, there is one kind perpetually blooming | and wo, in this our earthly inheritance. With every thing fair, or sweet, or exqui- tude or joy. I speak of the thorn which acsite in this world, it has seemed meet to that ❘ companies these pleasures not with murmurtural effects. Thus, we admire the stately pine upon the mountain, not merely because the eye is gratified by a correspondence between its spiral form pointing upward towards the sky, and the high projecting pin nacles of rock, unbroken by the steps of time; but because we know that in consequence of this particular form, it is peculiarly adapted to sustain without injury the tempestuous gales which prevail in those inhospitable regions where it chiefly grows. There is something fierce, bristling, and defensive, in the very aspect of the pine; as if it set at naught the hollow roar of the tempest through its scanty foliage, and around its firm unshaken stem, while it stands like a guardian of the mountain wilds, armed at all points, and proudly looking down upon the flight of the eagle, and the wreaths of wandering clouds that flit across the wilderness of untrodden snow. But plant a single pine upon the gentle slope of a green lawn, amongst lilachs, and laburnums, and tender flowering shrubs, the charm of association is broken, and the veteran of the rugged mountainous waste is shorn of his honours; like a patriot chief, submitting himself to the polished chains of society at the court of his tyrant conqueror. man. wisdom which appoints our sorrows, and sets a bound to our enjoyments, to affix some stain, some bitterness, or some alloy, which may not inaptly be called, in figurative language, a thorn. St. Paul emphatically speaks of a "thorn in the flesh," and from this expression, as well as from his earnestness in having prayed thrice that it might be removed, we conclude it must have been something particularly galling to the natural We hear of the thorn of ingratitude, the thorn of envy, the thorn of unrequited love-indeed of thorns as numerous as our pleasures; and few there are who can look back upon the experience of life, without acknowledging that every earthly good they have desired, pursued, or attained, has had its peculiar thorn. Who has ever cast himself into the lap of luxury, without finding that his couch was strewed with thorns? Who has reached the summit of his ambition without feeling on that exalted pinnacle that he stood on thorns? Who has placed the diadem upon his brow, without perceiving that thorns were thickly set within the royal circlet? Who has folded to his bosom all that he desired of earth's treasures, with out feeling that bosom pierced with thorns? All that we enjoy in this world, or yearn to possess, has this accompaniment. The more intense the enjoyment, the sharper the thorn; and those who have described most feelingly the inner workings of the human heart, have unfailingly touched upon this fact with the melancholy sadness of truth. Far be it from one who would not willingly fall under the stigma of ingratitude, to disparage the nature, or the number of earthly pleasures-pleasures which are spread before us without price or limitation, in our daily walk, and in our nightly restpleasures which lie scattered around our path when we go forth upon the hills, or wander in the valley, when we look up to the starry sky, or down to the fruitful earth -pleasures which unite the human family in one bond of fellowship, surround us at our board, cheer us at our fire-side, smooth the couch on which we slumber, and even follow our wandering steps long-long after we have ceased to regard them with grati ing or complaint. I speak of the wounds inflicted by this thorn with a living consciousness of their poignancy and anguish; because exquisite and dear as mere earthly pleasures may sometimes be, I would still contrast them with such as are not earthly. I would contrast the thorn and the wound, the disappointment and the pain which accompany all such pleasures as are merely temporal, with the fulness of happiness, the peace, and the crown, accompanying those which are eternal. THE POETRY OF TREES. In contemplating the external aspect of nature, trees, in their infinite variety of form and foliage, appear most important and conspicuous; yet so many are the changes which they undergo from the influence of the sun and the atmosphere, that it would be useless to attempt to speak of the associations belonging to this class of natural productions abstractedly, and detached from collateral circumstances. What poet, for instance, would describe the rich foliage of the summer woods, without the radiance of the summer sun; the wandering gale that waves their leafy boughs; the mountain side to which their knotted roots are clinging; the green valley where they live and flourish, safe from raging storms; and the murmuring stream, over which their branches bend and meet. There is, however, a marked distinction in the character of different trees, and a general agreement amongst mankind in the relative ideas connected with each particular species. It is scarcely necessary to repeat how essential to our notions of perfection is the beauty of fitness-that neither colour, form, nor symmetry, nor all combined in one object, can command our unqualified admiration without adaptation; and that the mind, by a sort of involuntary process, and frequently unconsciously to itself, takes note of the right application of means, and the relation of certain causes with their na The oak, the monarch of the woods, presents to the contemplative beholder innumerable associations by which his mind is throw of empires, the destruction of thrones, and the scattering of multitudes-while the laws and religion of half the world have been revolutionized, and what was once deemed a virtue has gradually become punishable as a crime-while sterile wastes have been reclaimed, and fertilized, and made fruitful, by the power and industry of successive generations of men, and arts and commerce have wrought wonders which our unsophisticated forefathers would have pronounced miraculous-the same oak has stood, perhaps at one time the witness of Druidical rites, at another affording shelter to the simple and unlettered peasant tending the herds of swine that fed upon its falling acorns: until, years rolling on, revolving summers crowning its brow with verdant beauty, and hoary winter scattering that beauty to the winds, have left it for our warning, an emblem of fallen majesty-its once sturdy boughs no sooner attacked by the worm of destruction within, than assailed, and torn, and broken by the merciless blast without. Striking and magnificent as the oak unquestionably is in its peculiar attitude and growth, presenting at one view the combined ideas of ability to resist the strong, and power to defend the weak, it is yet scarcely less majestic than beautiful. What a combination of gorgeous hues its autum plunged into the profound ideas of gran-nal foliage displays! The eye of the painter revels in its sombre glory, its burnished hue, and its wild fantastic garniture of green and gold, contrasted with its own hoary stem, and the depth of shadow that is thrown by the rays of the declining sun in lengthening gloom over the quiet earth. deur, space, and time. We are first struck with the majestic form and character of this tree-the mass of its foliage, the depth and extent of its shadow, and the tremendous power of resistance bodied forth in its gnarled and twisted boughs; but above all other considerations connected with it, we are affected almost with reverence by the lapse of time required to bring those prodigious branches to perfection, and the many, many tides of human feeling that must ebb and flow, before those firmly knotted roots shall yield to the process of decay. In the natural course of meditation to which such a subject leads, we consider the striking truth, that while nations have bowed and trembled beneath successive tyrants until by the wonted course of nature, the terrors of the oppressed have given place to the reckless desperation that works its way, by the over- | which we regard the oak with feelings of Nor is it merely with the outward aspect of this tree that our most powerful associations are connected. In a nation perpetually exulting in her maratime supremacy, we have learned to regard the oak as forming a sort of bulwark for the defence of our liberties. Thus, the British sailor calls upon his comrades by the proud title of "hearts of oak," and England is not unfrequently described as being protected by her "oaken walls." There are, besides these, many other characters or points of consideration, in the principal ornaments in many religious ❘us, connecting that lovely and untroubled respect, and sometimes with poetical interest. Perhaps it is not least in the scale of importance, that many ancient and stately apartments, dedicated to solemn or religious purposes, are lined with panels of the wood of this tree. The same wood, beautifully carved and deepened into gloomy magnificence by the sombre influence of time, forms one of of the cottage slowly ascending, and clearly revealed against the sombre darkness of the elm, we think of the labourer returning to his evening meal, the birds folding their weary wings, the coo of the wood pigeon, the gentle fall of evening dew, the lull of winds and waves, the universal calm of nature, and a thousand associations rush upon houses; and when we look back to the customs of our ancestors, and the station which they occupied, with that respect which we naturally feel for their boasted hospitality, good cheer, and substantial magnificence, we seldom fail to surround them in imagination with goodly wainscoting of oak, to place a log of the same wood upon the blazing hearth, and to endow them with powers both mental and bodily, firm, stable, and unbending as this sturdy tree. Amongst the trees of the forest, the elm may very properly be placed next in rank to the oak, from its majestic size and importance. Yet the elm has a very different character, and consequently excites in the contemplative mind a different train of associations and ideas. The massive and umbrageous boughs, or rather arms of the elm, stretching forth at right angles with its stately stem, present to the imagination a picture of calm dignity rather than defensive power. From the superficial manner in which the roots of this tree are connected with the earth, it is ill calculated to sustain the force of the tempest, and is frequently torn from its hold and laid prostrate on the ground by the gale, whose violence appears to be unheeded by its brethren of the forest. In painting, or in ideal picture-making, we plant the elm upon the village green, a sort of feudal lord of that little peopled territory; or in stately rows skirting the confines of the dead, where the deep shadow from its dark green foliage falls upon the quiet graves, and the long rank grass, and on the village church, when from her gray sides and arched windows she reflects the rays of the setting sun, and looks, in her silence and solemnity, like a sister to those venerable trees. There are no gorgeous hues in the foliage of the elm, no light waving, dancing or glistening amongst its heavy boughs. All is grave majesty; and when we see the smoke scene with vast and profound ideas of solemnity and repose. To the willow belongs a character peculiarly its own. It has no stateliness, or majesty, or depth of shadow, to strike the senses and set the imagination afloat; but this mournful tree possesses a claim upon our attention, as having become the universal badge of sorrow, fancifully adopted by the victims of despair, and worn as a garland by the broken-hearted. It has also a beauty and a charm of its own. It carries us in idea to green pastures, and peaceful herds that browse in deep meadows by the side of some peaceful river, whose sleepy waters, silently gliding over their weedy bed, seem to bear away our anxious and conflicting thoughts along with them. Scated by the rude and ancient-looking stem of this tree, we listen to the soft whispering of the wind among its silvery leaves, and gaze upon the glassy surface of the slowly moving stream, just rippled here and there by a stray branch projecting from the flowery bank, or a fairy forest of reeds springing up in spite of the ceaseless and invincible flow of that unfailing tide. We gaze, until the precise distinctions of past, present, and future fade away-the ocean of time flows past us like that silent river (would it were as unruffled in its real course ;) and while retaining a dim and mysterious consciousness of our own existence, we lose all remembrance of its rough passages, all perception of its present bitterness, and all apprehension of its future perils. From such unprofitable musings, if too frequently indulged, we awake to a melancholy state of feeling, of which the willow has by the common consent of mankind become emblematical. Morbid, listless, and inactive, we shrink from the stirring necessities of life; we behold the happy flocks still feeding, and almost wish, that like them we could be content with a rich pasture, as 1 |