Love, on a day, wise poets tell, Some time in wrangling spent, Whether the violet should excel, Or she, in sweetest scent. But Venus, having lost the day, Poore girles, she fell on you, And beate ye so, as some dare say, Her blows did make ye blew. Even the most unpoetical nature must have been occasionally conscious of some such emotion as is embodied in these lines: There’s to me A daintiness about these early flowers That touches one like poetry. Among the visitants of March, especially if the season be mild, that now delights the eye of the observer, is the rich scarlet flower of the _Pyrus Japonica_; and the sweet-smelling jonquil irradiates the flower-border, and if he ventures into the fields, and braves the blustering winds of the season, he will be charmed with the bright blossoms of the celandine and the butter-cup, whose bright golden faces recall many an hour of childhood and happiness of the time when “Daisies and buttercups gladdened our sight, Like treasures of silver and gold.” As we approach the Equinox, the storms and winds tempestuous and frequent, yet from these extremes, reconciled and moderated by the hand of Providence, much good results. Thus says the poet of nature, whose philosophic reflections and moral remarks are only to be equalled by his own matchless descriptions: Be patient, swains, these cruel seeming winds Blow not in vain; for hence they keep repressed Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharged with rain, That o’er the vast Atlantic hither borne, In endless rain would quench the summer blaze, And cheerless drown the crude unripened year. * * * * * THE LADY OF THE ROCK. A LEGEND OF NEW ENGLAND. BY MISS M. J. WINDLE. CHAPTER I. Splendor in heaven, and horror on the main, Sunshine and storm at once—a troubled day. DRAMATIC POEM.