57
the light blossoms of the wild strawberry gem the banks with their small silvery stars! while above them the hawthorn gently waves its branches in the soft breeze, enwreathed and loaded with clustering swarms of flowers,
Speaking their perfume to the tell-tale air,
Who, gently whispering, will gaily go,
And all around the fragrant message bear.
Come, let us rest this hawthorn-tree below,
And breathe its luscious fragrance ere it flies,
And watch the tiny petals as they fall,
Circling and winnowing down our sylvan hall,
Shook from the full-flowered spray by quiv'ring wing
Of some gay bird, up-rushing to the skies
Its wild out-pouring melody to sing,
Exulting in its joy.[1]
The pink hawthorn is an elegant and brilliant ornament to the lawn or shrubbery, and forms a beautiful kind of raspberry-and-cream contrast to the white; but our affection is for the hedge-row hawthorn, the true "May," whose lavish wealth of flowers and fragrance in Spring adds to our lovely scenery a charm peculiarly English.
All our true poets love this generous wayside friend; Shakspeare, in Henry IV., says—
Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery?
- ↑ From an unpublished Poem by the Author.
