Amid the sunny luxury of grass,

Are tufts of pale-eyed primroses, entwined

With many a bright-hued flower, and shrub that scents
The all-voluptuous air.

CARRINGTON.

THE saffron tufts of the primrose announce the return of spring, when we see the snowy mantle of retiring winter ornamented with embroidery of verdure and of flowers. The season of hoar-frost has passed, but the bright days of summer have not yet arrived. The period is emblematical of a lovely girl just passing from childhood to youth. The timid Aglae has scarce attained her fifteenth year, and would fain join the romping games of her younger companions, but is unable to do so. She watches them, and her heart burns to follow them. But a distaste for innocent joys, which she cannot vanquish, disturbs the heart of this young beauty. An interesting paleness is spread over her face, her heart languishes, and she sighs, scarce knowing why. She has been told that, as spring succeeds to winter, so the pleasures of love follow those of nfancy. Poor girl! you will learn that those pleasures are mingled with bitterness and tears. The arrival of the primrose announces them to thee to-day; but it also tells thee that the happy period of infancy can never return. Alas! in a few years you will say, when observing the early primrose, "The days of love and of youth are fled, never to return."

In dewy glades,

The peering primrose, like sudden gladness,
Gleams on the soul-yet unregarded fades -
The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness.

H. COLERIDGE.

This plant has been sung by many of our best poets, but by none so well as he from whose delightful poems we have already quoted at the commencement of this article. The following lines are extracted from a piece addressed to a friend with an early primrose:

Accept this primrose, friend; it is a pledge

Of the returning spring. What though the wind-
The dread east wind-passed over the shivering earth,
And shook from his deep rustling wings the snows,

And bound the streamlets and the rivers all

In crystal fetters! What though infancy,

And age, and vigorous manhood, felt the blast
Before which many a human blossom fell!

Yet our fine Devon, in a sunny nook,

Cherished this flower; and when the soft west wind
Came with its balmy breath and gentle showers,
With simple grace this firstborn of the year
Waved its pale yellow star; and, lo! for thee
I plucked the welcome stranger.

Sometimes, alas! we see a lady matured in years, whose beauty has been marred by the ravages of time, decking herself in the gay habiliments of youth; such a one may be compared to the primrose in autumn, whose untimely presence is reproved in the following agreeable sonnet. It is by R. F. Housman, and was originally published in the Athenæum:

The solitary primrose hath come back

To haunt the green nooks of her happy spring.
Alas! it is a melancholy thing,

Thus to return, and vainly strive to track
The playmates of our youth! Whither have fled
The sweet companions of her vernal hours?
The bee, the infant leaves, the golden flowers,

That heard the cuckoo's music, as he sped
O'er hill and dale-whither have they departed?
And the blithe birds-have they too passed away?
All, save the darkling wren, whose plaintive lay
Just tells the hermitess is broken-hearted.

Go, then, pale flower, and hide thy drooping head,
For all thy springtime friends are changed, or dead.

I would not waste my spring of youth In idle dalliance. I would plant rich seeds To blossom in my manhood, and bear fruit When I am old.

HILLHOUSE.

The fresh, buoyant sense of being,

That bounds in Youth's yet careless breast,

Itself a star, not borrowing light,

But in its own glad essence bright.

Her eyes were blue as heaven;

Her cheek was dimpled when she smiled;

Her lipsa rosebud riven;

Her form the prettiest in the world;

Her step- a fairy's flight;

Her hair-like clouds in sunshine-curled

In clusters wild and bright.

"A child," I said; so artless, wild,

And full of mirth her mien,

You'd deem her but a lovely child,

Though she was just fifteen.

F. S. O.

I wish the oud would never blow!
"T is prettier and purer so:

It blushes through its bower of green,
And peeps above the mossy screen,
So timidly-I cannot bear

To have it open to the air!

F. S. O.

EGOTISM.

POET'S NARCISSUS.

Narcissus fair

As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still.

THOMSON.

THE poet's narcissus exhales a very agreeable perfume; it bears a golden crown in the centre of its pure white petals, which expand quite flat, the stem slightly inclining to one side. The cup or nectary in the centre, which is very short, is frequently bordered with a bright purple circle, and sometimes the nectary is edged with crimson.

Ovid, in his metamorphoses, tells us of the fate of the lovely and coy Narcissus. A thousand nymphs loved the handsome youth, but suffered the pangs of unrequited love. Viewing himself in the crystal fount he became enamoured of his own image.

Narcissus on the grassy verdure lies;

But while within the crystal fount he tries
To quench his heat, he feels new heats arise.
For, as his own bright image he surveyed,
He fell in love with the fantastic shade;
And o'er the fair resemblance hung unmoved,
Nor knew, fond youth! it was himself he loved.

OVID.

In consequence of this error he slighted the love of Echo, who witnessed his fruitless vows to the deceitful image. Addison thus translates the passage:

She saw him in his present misery,

Whom, spite of all her wrongs, she grieved to see;
She answered sadly to the lover's moan,

Sighed back his sighs, and groaned to every groan;
66 Ah, youth! beloved in vain," Narcissus cries -
"6 Ah, youth! beloved in vain," the nymph replies.

"Farewell!" says he; the parting sound scarce fell
From his faint lips, but she replied, "Farewell!"
Then on the wholesome earth he gasping lies,
Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes.
To the cold shades his flitting ghost retires,
And in the Stygian waves itself admires.

For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn;
Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn!
And now the sister nymphs prepare his urn;
When looking for his corpse, they only found
A rising stalk with yellow blossoms crowned.

Self is the medium least refined of all,

Through which Opinion's searching beam can fall;
And, passing there, the clearest steadiest ray

Will tinge its light and turn its line astray.

MOORE.