DAISY.
Bellis.

Class 19. Order 2. A lovely little flower, common in Europe. Flowers early, colors blue and white.

BEAUTY AND INNOCENCE.

The Daisy scattered on each mead and downe,
A golden tuft within a silver crown;

Faire fell that dainty flower! and may there be
No shepherd graced that doth not honor thee.

SENTIMENT.

Browne.

The star that gems life's morning sky,
Smile sweetly o'er thee now;
And flowers around thy pathway lie,
And roses crown thy brow-
That shed their delicate perfume
'Mid ringlets trembling like a plume;
While a deep witchery, soft and bright,
Is floating in those eyes of light.

Pure and undimmed, thy angel smile
Is mirrored on my dreams,
Like evening's sunset girded isle
Upon her shadowed streams:
And o'er my thoughts thy vision floats,
Like melody of spring-bird notes,
When the blue halcyon gently laves
His plumage in the flashing waves.

I cannot gaze on aught that wears
The beauty of the skies,

Or aught that in life's valley bears
The hues of paradise;

I cannot look upon a star,

Or cloud that seems a seraph's car,
Or any form of purity-

Unmingled with a dream of thee.

P. Benjamin.

DANDELION.

Class 19.

Leontodon, taraxacum.

Order 1. Indige

nous to Europe, but natural-ized in America. Blossoms

early in the spring; its flowers open a little after sunrise, and close before sunset.

COQUETRY.

Thine full many a pleasing bloom
Of blossoms lost to all perfume.
Thine the Dandelion flowers,

Gilt with dew, like suns with showers.

John Clare

SENTIMENT.

Thou delightest the cold world's gaze,
When crowned with the flower and the gem,
But thy lover's smile should be dearer praise
Than the incense thou prizest from them.

And gay is the playful tone,

As to the flattering voice thou respondest; But what is the praise of the cold and unknown To the tender blame of the fondest?

John Everett.

ANSWER.

Cast my heart's gold into the furnace flame,
And if it come not thence refined and pure,
I'll be a bankrupt to thy hope, and heaven
Shall shut its gates on me.

Mrs. Sigourney

Innocent dreams be thine! thy heart sends up
Its thoughts of purity, like pearly bells,
Rising in crystal fountains. Would I were
A sound, that I might steal upon thy dreams,
And, like the breathing of my flute, distil
Sweetly upon thy senses.

The night above thee broodeth,
Hushed and deep;

But no dark thought intrudeth
On the sleep

Which folds thy senses now:
Gentle spirits float around thee,

Gentle rest hath softly bound thee,

For pure art thou.

Willis.

EGLANTINE.
Rosa, rubignosa.

(European Sweet Brier.)

Class 12.

Order 13. Flowers pink color, some

times whitish; sweet scented.

I WOUND TO HEAL.

And the fresh Eglantine exhaled a breath, Whose odors were of power to raise from death.

Spencer.

SENTIMENT.

When the tree of Love is budding first,
Ere yet its leaves are green,

Ere yet by shower and sunbeam nursed
Its infant life hath been;

The wild bee's slightest touch might wring
The buds from off the tree,

As the gentle dip of the swallow's wing
Breaks the bubbles on the sea:
But when its open leaves have found
A home in the free air,

Pluck them, and there remains a wound
That ever rankles there.

The blight of hope and happiness

Is felt when fond ones part;
And the bitter tear that follows, is

The life-blood of the heart.

Then crush, even in the hour of birth,
The infant buds of love,

And tread the growing fire to earth

Ere 't is dark in clouds above.

Cherish no more a cypress tree
To shade thy future years,

Nor nurse a heart-flame that must be
Quenched only with thy tears.

Halleck.

ELDER.

Class 5. Order 3. Indigenous to America, Europe and India.

Flowers milk

Sambucus, niger. white; berries dark purple, medicinal,

and so are the leaves and bark.

COMPASSION.

The healing Elder, like compassion mild,
Lifts her meek flowers amid the pathless wild.

Anon.

SENTIMENT.

The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf,
Nor the vexed ore a mineral of power;

And they who loved thee wait in anxious grief—

- Death should come

Gently to one of gentle mould, like thee,

As light winds, wandering through groves of bloom, Detach the delicate blossoms from the tree.

Close thy sweet eyes calmly and without pain, And we will trust in God to see thee yet again. Bryant.

ANSWER.

My hour has come, I lay me down,
With the dark grave in view;
And, hoping for a heavenly crown,
I bid the world adieu.

I dreamed of tortures in death's hour,
Of fevered brain and limb,

And of unearthly forms that lower,
When the eye waxes dim.

My dreams in death have other moulds,
Forms beautiful and bright

Are with me.

Jones.