96- SELECT PORTRY

Its colours were simple, its charms they were few,
Yet the flower looked fair on the spot where it
grew ;—
The florist beheld it, and cried, “ I'll enchant
The botanical world with this sweet little plant—
Its leaves shall be sheltered and carefully nursed,
It shall charm all the world, though I met with it first
Under a hedge.”

He carried it home to his hot-house with care,

And he said, “ Thovgh the rarest exotics’ are
there,

My little pet plant, when I've nourished its stem,

In tint and in fragrance shall emulate them,

Though none shall suspect from the roadside it
came $

Rhodum Sidum 1'll call it—a beautiful name—

When botanists look through their glasses and view

Its heauties, they'll never suspect that it grew

Under a hedge.’

The little pet plant, when it shook off the dirt
Of its own native ditch, began to grow pert,
And tossed its small head, for perceiving that none
But exotics were round it, it thought itself one :
As a field-flower, all would have said it was fair,
And praised it, though gaudier blossoms were there;
But when it assumes hot-house airs we see through
The forced tint of its leaves, and suspect thatit grew
Under a hedge.

In the bye-ways of life, oh ! how many there are,
Who being born under seme fortunate star,

1 Exotics—foreign plants.