B

BUTTERCUPS.

(Riches-Memories of Childhood.)

EAUTIFULLY does our great poet, Robert Browning, call these emblems of riches, "the buttercups, the little children's dower."

BUTTERCUPS.

E. COOK.

'Tis sweet to love in childhood, when the souls that we bequeath

Are beautiful in freshness as the coronals we wreathe ; When we feed the gentle robin, and caress the leaping

hound,

And linger latest on the spot where buttercups are found: When we seek the bee and ladybird with laughter, shout,

and song,

And think the day for wooing them can never be too long. Oh! 'tis sweet to love in childhood, and though stirred by meanest things,

The music that the heart yields then will never leave its stings.

'Tis sweet to love in after years the dear one by our side;

To dote with all the mingled joys of passion, hope, and

pride;

To think the chain around our breast will hold still warm

and fast,

And grieve to know that death must come to break the link at last.

But when the rainbow span of bliss is waning, hue by hue; When eyes forget their kindly beams, and lips become

less true;

When stricken hearts are pining on through many a lonely

hour,

Who would not sigh ''tis safer far to love the bird and flower ?'

'Tis sweet to love in ripened age the trumpet blast of

Fame,

To pant to live on Glory's scroll, though blood may trace the name;

'Tis sweet to love the heap of gold, and hug it to our breast,

To trust it as the guiding star and anchor of our rest.
But such devotion will not serve-however strong the

zeal

To overthrow the altar where our childhood loved to kneel. Some bitter moment shall o'ercast the sun of wealth and

power,

And then proud man would fain go back to worship bird and flower.

B

HAWTHORN.

(Hope.)

Y the Greeks the hawthorn was deemed one of the fortunate trees. The Romans accounted it a symbol of marriage because it was carried at the rape of the Sabines; it was ever after considered propitious. Its flowering branches were borne aloft at their marriages, and the newly-wedded pair were even lighted to the nuptial chamber with torches of its wood.

The Turks regard the presentation of a branch of hawthorn as denoting the donor's desire to receive from the object of his affection that token of love denominated a kiss.

Ronsard--sometimes styled the French Chaucerwrote a beautiful address to the hawthorn, thus faithfully rendered:

"Fair hawthorn flowering,
With green shade bowering

Along this lovely shore;

To thy foot around

With his long arms wound

A wild vine has mantled thee o'er.

"In armies twain,

Red ants have ta'en

Their fortress beneath thy stock;
And in clefts of thy trunk
Tiny bees have sunk

A cell where honey they lock.

*

"In merry Spring-tide,
When to woo his bride
The nightingale comes again,
Thy boughs among

He warbles his song,

That lightens a lover's pain.

"Gentle hawthorn, thrive,

And, for ever alive,

May'st thou blossom as now in thy prime;

By the wind unbroke,

And the thunder-stroke,

Unspoiled by the axe of time."

Chaucer thus sings of it:

"Furth goth all the Courte, both most and lest,

To fetche the flouris freshe, and braunche and blome
And namely hauthorne brought both page and grome,
With freshe garlandis partly blew and white,
And than rejoisin in their grete delight.

"Amongst the many buds proclaiming May
(Decking the meads in holiday array,
Striving who shall surpass in bravery)
Mark the fair blooming of the hawthorn tree;
Who, finely clothed in a robe of white,
Feeds full the wanton eye with May's delight,
Yet for the bravery that she is in

Doth neither handle card nor wheel to spin,
Nor changeth robes but twice; is never seen
In other colours than in white or green.

Learn then, content, young shepherd, from this tree,
Whose greatest wealth is Nature's livery."

Spenser tells us in his "Shepherd's Calendar,"

"Youth's folk now flocken everywhere,
To gather may-baskets and smelling breere;
And home they hasten the posts to dight,
And all the kirk-pillars ere daylight,
With hawthorn-buds, and sweet eglantine,
And garlands of roses, and sops-in-wine."

Herrick, in his "Hesperides," has a beautiful idyll descriptive of the manner in which maids went a-Maying.

TO CORINNA, TO GO A-MAYING.
GET up, get up for shame the blooming Morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air;
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see

The dew bespangling herb and tree.
Each flower has wept and bowed toward the east
Above an hour since, yet you are not drest,
Nay, not so much as out of bed;

When all the birds have matins said,

And sung their thankful hymns: 'tis sin,
Nay profanation, to keep in,

When as a thousand virgins on this day
Spring sooner than the lark to fetch in May.

Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen
To come forth, like the Spring-time, fresh and green,
And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gown or hair;
Fear not, the leaves will strew

Gems in abundance upon you;
Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,
Against you come, some orient pearls unwept ;

Come, and receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night;
And Titan on the eastern hill

Retires himself, or else stands still

Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying; Few beads are best when once we go a-Maying.