;
And field-flowers of every hue
On the sward their bloom are flinging.
Sweet it is to brush the dew
From wild lawns and woody places!
Sweeter yet to wreathe the rose
With the lily's virgin graces;
But the sweetest sweet man knows,
Is to woo a girl's embraces."

The most highly wrought of descriptive poems in this species is the
_Dispute of Flora and Phyllis_, which occurs both in the _Carmina
Burana_ and in the English MSS. edited by Wright. The motive of the
composition is as follows:--Two girls wake in the early morning, and
go out to walk together through the fields. Each of them is in love;
but Phyllis loves a soldier, Flora loves a scholar. They interchange
confidences, the one contending with the other for the superiority of
her own sweetheart.

Having said so much, I will present the first part of the poem in the
English version I have made.

FLORA AND PHYLLIS.

PART I.

No. 28.

In the spring-time, when the skies
Cast off winter's mourning,
And bright flowers of every hue
Earth's lap are adorning,
At the hour when Lucifer
Gives the stars their warning,
Phyllis woke, and Flora too,
In the early morning.

Both the girls were fain to go
Forth in sunny weather,
For love-laden bosoms throw
Sleep off like a feather;
Then with measured steps and slow
To the fields together
Went they, seeking pastime new
'Mid the flowers and heather.

Both were virgins, both, I ween,
Were by birth princesses;
Phyllis let her locks flow free,
Flora trained her tresses.
Not like girls they went, but like
Heavenly holinesses;
And their faces shone like dawn
'Neath the day's caresses.

Equal beauty, equal birth,
These fair maidens mated;
Youthful were the years of both,
And their minds elated;
Yet they were a pair unpaired,
Mates by strife unmated;
For one loved a clerk, and one
For a knight was fated.

Naught there was of difference
'Twixt them to the seeing,
All alike, within without,
Seemed in them agreeing;
With one garb, one cast of mind,
And one mode of being,
Only that they could not love
Save with disagreeing.

In the tree-tops overhead
A spring breeze was blowing,
And the meadow lawns around
With green grass were growing;
Th