THE

FLOWERS OF SUMMER.

I

The Flowers of Summer.

THE Summer's flower is to the Summer sweet, Though to itself it only live and die.

SHAKSPEARE.

THE BUTTERFLY IN A GARDEN,

ON A SUMMER'S DAY.

THERE he arriving, round about doth fly, From bed to bed, from one to other border, And takes survey, with curious, busy eye,

Of every flower and herb there set in order; Now this, now that he tasteth tenderly,

Yet none of them he rudely doth disorder, Ne with his feet their silken leaves deface, But pastures on the pleasures of each place.

And evermore with most variety,

And change of sweetness (for all change is

sweet)

He casts his dainty sense to satisfy,

Now sucking of the sap of herbs most meet, Or of the dew, which yet on them doth lie,

Now in the same bathing his tender feet: And then he percheth on some branch thereby, To weather him, and his moist wings to dry.

And whatso e'er of virtue good or ill

Grew in this Garden, fetcht from far away, Of every one he takes, and tastes at will,

And on their pleasures eagerly doth prey.
Then when he hath both played, and fed his fill,
In the warm Sun he doth himself embay,
And there him rests in riotous suffisance
Of all his gladfulness, and kingly joyance.

What more felicity can fall to creature,
Than to enjoy delight with liberty,
And to be lord of all the works of Nature,

To reign in th' air from earth to highest sky, To feed on flowers, and weeds of glorious feature, To take whatever thing doth please the eye? Who rests not pleased with such happiness, Well worthy he to taste of wretchedness.

SPENSER.

The Rose.

Rosa.

Class Icosandria. Order Polygynia.

THIS precious flower, whose "Paradise of leaves" has been sung with all the attributes of surpassing loveliness by the poets of every country on which it is bestowed, has perhaps never been more beautifully described, than by Bishop Jeremy Taylor, when he compares its charms and fleeting existence to the life of man. "But so I have seen a Rose newly springing from the clefts of its hood, and at first it was fair as the morning, and full with the dew of heaven, as a lamb's fleece: but when a ruder breath had forced open its virgin-modesty, and dismantled its too youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on darkness, and to decline to softness, and the symptoms of a sickly age: it bowed the head,

* It is remarkable, that while Roses abound in almost all parts of the northern hemisphere, they have never been found south of the equator.