TO A FLORIST,

PARTIAL TO RARE EXOTICKS.

FORBEAR, my friend! nor longer boast
Of flowers that mock your anxious care ;
That sicken in the vernal frost,

And languish in the breezy air.

Because you lavish love on those

Who still are strangers in our clime, The Muse intrudes on your repose,

And troubles you with doggrel rhyme.

You slight the budding half-blown rose,
And lily, fair as mountain snow;
That rich in blushing beauty glows,
From this what fragrant odours flow!

These are exoticks still, you say,

Both children of a foreign race ; But, naturalized, they flourish gay,

And natives now, our gardens grace.

When herds are lowing on the plain,
Or on the hills when lambkins bleat,
As fair is Scotia's native train,

And perfumes shed, as rich and sweet.

See purple orchis towering rise,

'Midst cowslips in the green-sward vale; While violets, hid from strangers' eyes, Breathe incense in the vernal gale.

Mark when the mavis tells a tale

Of love, perched on the blossomed thorn, And then you'll see the primrose pale, With smiles salute the rising morn.

How lovely are our snow-white slaes !
How sweet the whin with golden bloom!

How pleasant are our banks and braes,
Where waves our richly yellow broom!

Have you beheld, from foreign land,

A shrub that can with these compare?

Or does a stranger bloom expand,

To sight and smell more sweet and fair?

I've lingered oft by rocky dells,

Where streamlets wind with murmuring din,

And marked the fox-glove's purple bells

Hang nodding o'er the dimpled linn.

The bank with blooming heather red,

The knoll with creeping wild-thyme crowned, For me a flowery carpet spread,

And breathed their mingling odours round.

I've leaned with fond delight, to see
The wild flowers smiling at my feet;
And listened to the mountain bee,

That, humming, gathered nectar sweet.

How fresh the breeze from sunny glade,
With hyacinths and king-cups gay!
Nor orange grove, nor myrtle shade,
Are sweeter than the half-won hay.

Who would a flowery chaplet twine—
Emblem of love, chaste, fond, and true—
With richer blossoms will combine

Forget-me-not, in azure blue.

With virgin beauty by your side,

Have you e'er pulled the wild-rose fair,

And placed it on her breast, to hide

Its blush, and breathe its sweetness there?

Have you, at morn of dewy May,

Seen budding green birch scent the grove?

Or lingered there at closing day,

To whisper soft your tale of love?

When Time has furrowed o'er your brow,
Το
grey has turned your auburn hair,
Has chilled the heart's once raptured glow,

When bent with age, oppressed with care;

Ah! you will scorn these foreign toys,
Or view them with a careless eye;
While memory dwells on former joys,
The dear delights of days gone by.

You'll think of groves and birchen bowers, The heath-clad hill and dim-wood glen,

Of morning walks, and twilight hours,

And sigh to live them o'er again !

Of all the flowers that "

grace the wild,' One will be dearer than the rest,The gowan, Scotia's native child,.

Will wake remembrance in your

You'll muse upon its simple form,

breast.

The earliest bloom to welcome spring;

And lingering, till the wintry storm

Waves o'er its head his chilling wing.

Sweet emblem of unchanging love,

Of friendship that can ne'er decay,
That will through life still constant prove,
And kindly grace your breathless clay!

Its snow-white leaves with crimson tipt, Its bosom bright with yellow gold, Rich, as in rainbow colours dipt,

Will on thy grave its cup unfold.

Daisy, of flowers my first delight,

In childhood dear thy spotless bloom; Through life still lovely to my sight; Be thou the trophy on my tomb!

Wherever rests my mouldering clay, There be thy bosom sun-ward spread,

In promise of returning day,

Still blossom on my grassy bed!