| | Elegiac sonnets. Volume 2 of 2
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SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN THE
NEW FOREST, IN EARLY SPRING.
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[Note:] VERSES.
Supposed to have been written in the New Forest,
in early Spring.
These are from the Novel of Marchmont,
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AS in the woods, where leathery Lichen weaves [Note:] VERSES.
Line 1.
As in the woods where leathery lichen weaves
Its wint'ry web among the sallow leaves.
Mosses and lichens are the first efforts of nature to clothe the earth: as they decay, they form an earth that affords nourishment to the larger and more succulent vegetables: several species of lichen are found in the woods, springing up among the dead leaves, under the drip of forest trees: these, and the withered foliage of preceding years, afford shelter to the earliest wild flowers about the skirts of woods, and in hedge-rows and copses.
The Pile-wort (Ranucula Ficaria) and the Wood Anemone (Anemone Nemerosa) or Wind-flower, blow in the woods and copses. Of this latter beautiful species there is in Oxfordshire a blue one, growing wild, (Anemone pratensis pedunculo infoluerato, petalis apice reflexis foliis bipinnatis — Lin. Sp. Pl. 760.) It is found in Whichwood Forest near Cornbury quarry. (Vide Flora Oxonensis). I do not mention this by way of exhibiting botanical knowledge (so easy to possess in appearance) but because I never saw the Blue Anemone wild in any other place, and it is a flower of singular beauty and elegance.
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Its wint'ry web among the sallow leaves,
Which (thro' cold months in whirling eddies blown)
Decay beneath the branches once their own,
From the brown shelter of their foliage fear,
Spring the young blooms that lead the floral year:
When, waked by vernal suns, the Pilewort dares
Expand her spotted leaves, and shining starts
And (veins empurpling all her tassels pale)
Bends the soft Wind-flower in the tepid gale;
Uncultured bells of azure Jacynth's blow, [Note:] VERSES.
Line 11.
Uncultured bells of azure Jacynths blow.
Hyacinthus no scriptus — a Hare-bell.
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And the breeze-scenting Violet lurks below: [Note:] VERSES.
Line 12.
And the breeze-scenting Violet lurks below.
To the Violet there needs no note, it being like the Nightingale and the Rose, in constant requisition by the poets.
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47
So views the wanderer, with delighted eyes,
Reviving hopes from black despondence rise,
When, blighted by Adversity's chill breath,
Those hopes had felt a temporary death;
Then with gay heart he looks to future hours,
When Love shall dress for him the Summer bowers!
And, as delicious dreams enchant his mind,
Forgets his sorrow past, or gives them to the wind.
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