Now the bright morning-star, day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow Cowslip, and the pale primrose.

MILTON.

TO MEADOWS.

"The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled Cowslip, burnet, and green clover."

YE have been fresh and green,
Ye have been filled with flowers;

And ye the walks have been,

Where maids have spent their hours.

Ye have beheld where they
With wicker arks did come,

To kiss and bear away

The richer Cowslips home.

You've heard them sweetly sing,
And seen them in a round,
Each virgin like a spring,
With honeysuckles crowned.

But now we see none here,

Whose silvery feet did tread,

And, with dishevelled hair,
Adorned the smoother mead.

Like unthrifts, having spent
Your stock, and needy grown,
Ye 're left here to lament

Your poor estates alone.

HERRICK.

THE COWSLIP.

Now in my walk with sweet surprise
I see the first spring Cowslip rise,
The plant whose pensile flowers
Bend to the earth their beauteous eyes,
In sunshine as in showers.

Low on a mossy bank it grew,
Where lichens purple, red, and blue,
Among the verdure crept;
Its yellow ringlets, dropping dew,
The breezes lightly swept.

A bee had nestled on its bloom,
He shook abroad their rich perfume,
Then fled in airy rings;

His place a butterfly assumes,

Glancing his glorious wings.

Oh! welcome! as a friend! I cried,
A friend through many a season tried,
And never sought in vain,
When May, with Flora at her side,
Is dancing on the plain.

Sheltered by nature's graceful hand
In briary glens, o'er pasture land
The fairy tribes we meet,

Gay in the milk-maid's path they stand,
They kiss her tripping feet.

From winter's farm-yard bondage freed,
The cattle bounding o'er the mead,
Where green the herbage grows,
Among thy fragrant blossoms feed,
Upon thy tufts repose.

Tossing his fore-lock o'er his mane,
The foal, at rest upon the plain,
Sports with thy flexile stalk;
Yet stoops his little neck in vain
To crop it in his walk.

Where thick thy primrose blossoms play,

Lovely and innocent as they,

O'er coppice lawns and dells,

In bands the village children stray
To pluck thy honied bells:

Whose simple sweets with curious skill
The frugal cottage-dames distil,
Nor envy France the vine :
While many a festal cup they fill
Of Britain's homely wine.

Perhaps from nature's earliest May,
Imperishable 'midst decay,
Thy self-renewing race

Have breathed their balmy lives away,
In this neglected place.

And oh! till nature's final doom
Here unmolested may they bloom,

From scythe and plough secure ;
This bank their cradle and their tomb,
While earth and skies endure !

J. MONTGOMERY.

The Daisy.

Bellis Perennis.

Class Syngenesia. Order Polygamia Superflua.

THIS flower, the first prize of childhood, and afterwards not less dear from the associations connected with it, is in blow during almost all the year, and in most parts of Europe. Its rich disk of gold, and white rays beautifully tinged with crimson, merit the name of Eye of Day; and it always closes before night, and at the approach of rainy weather. The French appellation of Marguerite, has given rise to many elegant compliments to the ladies who share it.

IN Feverere, when that it was colde,

Froste, snowe, haile, raine, hath dominacion, With changable elementes, and windes manifolde, Which hath of ground, floure, herbe, jurisdicion, For to dispose aftir their correcion;

And yet Aprilis, with his pleasant shoures,
Dissolveth the snow, and bringeth forth his
Loures.

F