And she, when spring comes round again,
By greening slope and singing flood
Shall wander, seeking, not in vain,
Her darlings of the wood.
1855.



THE MAYFLOWERS

The trailing arbutus, or mayflower, grows abundantly in the
vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower that greeted the
Pilgrims after their fearful winter. The name mayflower was
familiar in England, as the application of it to the historic
vessel shows, but it was applied by the English, and still is, to
the hawthorn. Its use in New England in connection with _Epigma
repens _dates from a very early day, some claiming that the first
Pilgrims so used it, in affectionate memory of the vessel and its
English flower association.

Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars,
And nursed by winter gales,
With petals of the sleeted spars,
And leaves of frozen sails!

What had she in those dreary hours,
Within her ice-rimmed bay,
In common with the wild-wood flowers,
The first sweet smiles of May?