The insect world, now sunbeams higher climb, Oft dream of Spring, and wake before their time. Bees stroke their little legs across their wings, And venture short flights where the snow-drop brings Its silver bell, and winter aconite, Its buttercup-like flowers, that shut at night, With green leaf furling round its cup of gold, Like tender maiden muffled from the cold; They sip, and find their honey-dreams are vain, Then feebly hasten to their hives again. The butterflies, by eager hopes undone, Glad as a child come out to greet the sun; Beneath the shadow of a sudden shower, Are lost—nor see to-morrow’s April flower.
The gardens are now beginning to be studded by the crocus—
“The flower of Hope, whose hue Is bright with coming joy,”
the varieties of which adorn the borders with a rich mixture of yellow and purple. The little shrubs of mezereon are in their beauty. The fields begin to be clothed with the springing grass, and but few flowers appear to decorate their velvet mounds. The flowers of Spring have been favorite themes for the poets. Shakspeare represents Perdita as desirous to present to her guests
Daffodils That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes, Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phœbus in his strength, a malady Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds, The flower-de-luce being one!
and Chaucer has sung so melodiously and so affectionately of the charms of
These flowres, white and rede, Soch that men callen daisies in our town,
as to entwine it with the recollections of himself. Shelley, among the modern writers, in a single couplet, has left one of the most exquisite descriptions of this flower that ever was written:
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets!
And another poet endears it by a single epithet. He is seeking for a flower to place in the coffined hand of a dead infant.
Flowers! oh, a flower! a winter rose, That tiny hand to fill, Go search the fields! the lichen wet, Bends o’er the unfailing well: Beneath the furrow lingers yet The scarlet pimpernel. Peeps not a snow-drop in the bower, Where never froze the spring? _A daisy? oh! bring childhood’s flower—_ _The half-blown daisy bring!_ Yes, lay the daisy’s little head Beside the little cheek; Oh, hush! the last of five is dead— The childless cannot speak!