In milk-white garb; and these are maiden thoughts. Then, "purpled with Love's wound," they 're pencilled o'er With richer beauty; and fantastic oft,

And fleeting too, are these love-marks, I ween.

Some prank them bravely out in courtier garb,
Trimming, with gold their purple. Some, methinks,
Their quiet humble-coloured heads bend down,

Like gentle modest beings, doomed to bear

Much of earth's grief, subduing their young hearts

Into a holy calm. Others again,

With hues abruptly-almost harshly mixed,

Are like the meteor-minded sons of earth,

With whom wild genius dwells-brilliant and strange,-
In them e'en error oft times glorious shows.
Others, like hoarding misers, deep within
Hide a rich golden treasure, guarded round
With many a blackened line; and all the rest
Sombre and dusk appears; they would not seem
To have such wealth, and so go dimly clad.

Oh! are not PANSIES emblems meet for thoughts?
The pure, the chequer'd-gay and deep by turns;
A hue for every mood the bright things wear
In their soft velvet coats-

And let his name,

Who thus entwined them in immortal song,
Be ever honoured when they meet our gaze;

And bring, as though 'twere writ upon their leaves,
All that most graceful fairy scene, where Puck,
His elvish ears attentive, learns the tale

Of OBERON'S Syren-song-and how the shaft
Of armed Cupid dyed this "western flower,"
Which maidens now call LOVE IN IDLENESS.

SPRING MEMORIES AND MUSINGS.

I have presented my graphic portraits of Spring's fair children to my readers, with little illustration save my own fanciful, and, it may be, feebly descriptive poems; but as several of the selected Flowers, and others (which, though not represented in the illustrative groups, are famed gems), have poetic fables connected with them, I shall now give a few brief memoirs of familiar favourites, illustrating and enlivening my dull prose with extracts from our great old Poets.

In suffering my own productions to take precedence of these jewels, drawn from the mines of poetic wealth bequeathed to us by our ancient Bards, I am not actuated by vanity, but by a very different feeling-that of policy; believing that my humble lays would be far more graciously received by my readers, before the memory of favourite passages on like subjects had been refreshed by my extractgleanings; well knowing, how

As in a theatre, the eyes of men,

After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious.

D

There are few persons to whom the return of Spring is not a source of delight. Even to the denizens of the dim and noisy town its approach is welcome, as bringing a promise of clean streets and fair weather, and offering the chance of an occasional peep of blue sky between the tall houses. But to the dwellers in pleasant country places, where the hills and dales are Nature's own-where the wide heaven is unsmirched by smoke, and the air is pure and bright, and fragrant with the springing Flowers and the fresh earth; where the birds are flitting gaily around, and trilling forth songs of liberty and love;-to all whose lives may happily be passed among such scenes, how glorious is the Spring-time!

How exhilirating are the first few warmer days—how joyously we fling aside portions of our cumbrous winterwalking attire, to ramble along "by hedge-row elms and hillocks green;" and, after the first small buds have burst forth on the branches, how anxiously we watch their growth, and fancy we may see the leaves expanding in the genial sunshine, and clothing the skeleton forms of winter with robes of young vernal beauty. The general hue of the evergreens, which have so kindly solaced us during the wintry months, seem to acquire a more sombre tinge, as the vivid yellow green of the other trees now quite eclipses their beauty, although, when the young shoots of firs and cedars are put forth, the alternation of colour in them is very striking."

The birds are now busy, too, and musically clamorous; hundreds of them are warbling, and chirping, and chattering at once, yet in their mingled voices we hear no discord. It is