Oh! fragrant dwellers of the lea, When first the wildwood rings With each sound of vernal minstrelsy, When fresh the green grass springs! What can the blessed spring restore More gladdening than your charms? Bringing the memory once more Of lovely fields and farms! Of thickets, breezes, birds, and flowers; Of life’s unfolding prime; Of thoughts as cloudless as the hours; Of souls without a crime. Oh! blessed, blessed do ye seem, For, even now, I turned, With soul athirst for wood and stream, From streets that glared and burned. From the hot town, where mortal care His crowded fold doth pen; Where stagnates the polluted air In many a sultry den. And ye are here! and ye are here! Drinking the dew-like wine, Midst living gales and waters clear, And heaven’s unstinted shine. I care not that your little life Will quickly have run through, And the sward, with summer children rife, Keep not a trace of you. For again, again, on dewy plain, I trust to see you rise, When spring renews the wildwood strain, And bluer gleam the skies. Again, again, when many springs Upon my grave shall shine, Here shall you speak of vanished things, To living hearts of mine. _Mrs. Howitt._ * * * * * Blest are the pure and simple hearts, Unconsciously refined, By the free gifts that Heaven imparts Through nature to the mind; Not all the pleasures wealth can buy Equal their happy destiny. _Mrs. Wells._ * * * * * O Nature! a’ thy shows an’ forms To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms! Whether the simmer kindly warms, Wi’ life an’ light. Or winter howls, in gusty storms, The lang, dark night! _Burns._ * * * * * Melancholy Sits on me, as a cloud along the sky, Which will not let the sunbeams through, nor yet Descend in rain, and end; but spreads itself ’Twixt heaven and earth, like envy between man And man--an everlasting mist. _Byron._ FORGET-ME-NOT.