\\ 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 IV 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE 
 
 LANGUAGE AND PGETHY 
 
THE 
 
 LANGUAGE AND POETRY 
 
 BY 
 
 H. G. ADAMS. 
 
 " I have gathered a nosegay of Culled Flowers, and brought 
 nothing of my own but the thread that ties them." 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 
 1864. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 
 
 HENRY F. ANNERS, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District 
 of Pennsylvania. 
 
The motto chosen for the title page of this little 
 volume, will best explain the nature and plan of it, 
 and therefore the readers are spared the infliction of 
 a long elucidatory preface, which it is quite likely that 
 they would not take the trouble to read. Apologies 
 for putting forth a work on a similar subject to so 
 many beautiful volumes as to have, during the last 
 few years, issued from the press, the Editor does not 
 conceive to be necessary, because he feels assured 
 that the taste for flowers, and for the poetical associa- 
 tions connected therewith, widely as it has been 
 extended and diffused among all classes, by these 
 various publications, is still a growing and increasing 
 one, and that there is yet room for many more works, 
 both original and collected, upon this most imagina- 
 tive and delightful of all subjects. 
 
 436924 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Language of Flowers, H. Q. Adams, 13 
 
 Holy Flowers, Mary Howitt, 31 
 
 Water Lilies, Mrs. Hemans, 34 
 
 Albanian Love Letter, Leigh Hunt, 35 
 
 Flower Girl, Mrs. Corbold, 37 
 
 The Bud of the Rose, 38 
 
 Forget Me Not, 39 
 
 Love in a Rose Bud, .S.Coleridge, 41 
 
 To a Daisy, _ Wordsworth, 42 
 
 To a Bunch of Flowers, James L, Clark, 43 
 
 The Violet, 46 
 
 Autumn Flowers, 47 
 
 The Honey Suckle, Countess of Blessington, 49 
 
 The Rose Bud, Keeble, 51 
 
 Sun Flower, Thompson, 54 
 
 The Moss Rose, J. B. 55 
 
 Moral Flowers, H. GK Adams, 56 
 
 The Flower of the Desert, Mrs. Hemans, 75 
 
 The Flower of Fenestrella, 78 
 
 The Use of Flowers, Mrs. Howitt, 80 
 
 To a Flower, Barry Cornwall, 82 
 
 A Song of the Rose, Mrs. Hemans, 84 
 
CONTENT*. 
 
 Children and Flowers, H. G. Adams, 87 
 
 A Prospect of Flowers, Andrew Marvell, 108 
 
 Hyacinth, Casimir, 109 
 
 A Birth-Day Ballad, Mrs. Jewsburg, 110 
 
 The Furze, 112 
 
 Floral Ceremonies, H. G. Adams, 113 
 
 Hymn of the Turkish Children, Miss Pardoe, 132 
 
 Hindoo Girls Floating their Tributary 
 
 Offerings Down the Ganges, Miss Landon, 134 
 
 Funeral Flowers, H. G. Adams, 139 
 
 Lines, , M. A. Brown, 158 
 
 Mrs. Hemans & L. E. L., 161 
 
 Wedding Wake, George Darley, 162 
 
 The Dying Boy to the Sloe Blossom, E. Elliott, 164 
 
 Wild Flowers, H.G.Adams, 169 
 
 Heliotrope, 188 
 
 Wild Flowers Anne Pratt, 189 
 
 Decision of the Flower, L. E. L., 192 
 
 The Wild Flowers, F. J. Smith, 193 
 
 A Wild Flower Wreath, 194 
 
 The Cowslip, 196 
 
 Daffodils, 198 
 
 Violet's Spring Song, L. A. Twamley, 199 
 
 To a Rose, 201 
 
 The Alpine Violet, Byron, 205 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Enchanted Plants, by Madame Montolieu, 
 
 " Introdnction, 20 
 
 " Grumbling, 208 
 
 < Scandal, 213 
 
 " Despair, 216 
 
 " Sensibility, 218 
 
 " Contention, 222 
 
 * Love, 225 
 
 Wall Flower, 229 
 
 Temptation. A Floral Fable, 230 
 
 Vulgarity, " " 234 
 
 Vanity, " " 238 
 
 On the Rose, H. Walton, 240 
 
 Songs and Chorus of the Flowers, Leigh Hunt, 241 
 
 The Lay of the Rose,., Elizabeth B. Bennett, 251 
 
 On a Faded Violet, Shelley, 261 
 
 Hare Bell, Marie Roseau, 262 
 
 The Forget Me Not, r 264 
 
 Love shut out of the Flower Garden, Mrs. Laurence, 265 
 The Captive and Flowers, Goethe, 268 
 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWER& 
 
 " The gentle flowers 
 
 Retired, and stooping o'er the wilderness, 
 Talked of humility, and peace, and love." 
 
 ROBERT POLLOK. 
 
 OVER what barren spot is it, reader, that the 
 gentle flowers" shed, with most effect, their 
 sanctifying influence ? Is it not over that moral 
 " wilderness," the heart of man, that they 
 " stoop," and talk of humility, and peace and 
 love," till the stony places become fruitful, and 
 produce abundantly, good thoughts, pure wishes, 
 and holy desires and aspirations ; till the sterile 
 waste changes to a garden ? It is, and none 
 that have ever truly listened to their eloquent 
 2 13 
 
 
14 LANGUAGE OF FLOWEKS. 
 
 preaching, have turned away unimproved and 
 uninstructed, for : 
 
 "From the first bud, whose verdant head 
 
 The winter's lingering tempest braves, 
 To those, which 'mid the foliage dead, 
 
 Shrink latest to their annual graves j 
 All are for use, for health, or pleasure given, 
 All speak, in various ways, the bounteous hand of Heaven." 
 
 CHARLOTTE SMITH 
 
 These are the sentiments of a pure mind and 
 a lofty imagination, and the authoress of the 
 following words may well claim sisterhood with 
 her from whom they emanated : " And who 
 dare say that flowers do not speak a language, 
 a clear and intelligible language ? Ask WORDS- 
 WORTH, for to him they have spoken, until they 
 excited < thoughts that lie too deep for tears ;' 
 ask CHAUCER, for he held companionship with 
 them in the meadows ; ask any of the poets, 
 ancient or modern. Observe them, reader, love 
 them, linger over them, and ask your own 
 heart if they do not speak affection, benevolence, 
 and piety ?" In confirmation of this, we also 
 quote some stanzas from another poet, whose 
 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 15 
 
 volumes, as this authoress truly observes, " are 
 like a beautiful country, diversified with woods, 
 meadows, heaths, and flower-gardens :"* 
 
 " Bowing adorers of the gale, 
 Ye cowslips delicately pale, 
 
 Upraise your loaded stems ; 
 Unfold your cups in splendour, speak / 
 Who decked you with that ruddy streak. 
 And gilt your golden gems ? 
 
 " Violets, sweet tenants of the shade, 
 In purple's richest pride arrayed, 
 
 Your errand here fulfil 
 Go, lid the artist's simple stain 
 Your lustre imitate in vain, 
 
 And match your Maker's skill. 
 
 " Daisies, ye flowers of lowly birth, 
 Embroiderers of the carpet earth, 
 
 * That stud the velvet sod, 
 Open to Spring's refreshing air, 
 In sweetest, smiling bloom, declare 
 
 Your Maker, and my God!." JOHN CLARK, 
 
 Verily, it was well said, that Solomon, in all 
 his glory was not arrayed like one of these ;" 
 and well was it continued, by a lately departed 
 
 * Flora Domestioa. 
 
16 LANGUAGE OF FLOWEKS. 
 
 poet, " and Solomon, in all his wisdom never 
 taught more wholesome lessons than these 
 silent monitors convey to a thoughtful mind 
 and an understanding heart." " There are 
 two books," says SIR THOMAS BROWNE, " from 
 whence I collect my divinity ; besides that 
 written one of God, another of His servant, 
 nature, that universal and public manuscript 
 that lies expanded unto the eyes of all. Those 
 who never saw Him in the one have discovered 
 Him in the other. This was the scripture and 
 theology of the heathens ; the natural motion of 
 the sun made them more admire Him than its 
 supernatural station did the children of Israel ; 
 the ordinary effects of nature wrought more 
 admiration in them, than in the other all his 
 miracles. Surely the heathens knew better 
 how to join and read these mystical letters, than 
 we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on 
 these common hieroglyphics, and disdain to 
 suck divinity from the flowers of nature." 
 
 " Flowers," says MR. PHILLIPS, " formed a 
 principal feature in symbolical language, which 
 is the most ancient, as well as the most natural, 
 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 17 
 
 of all languages. It was an easy transition, 
 after they had come to be regarded as proofs 
 and manifestations of divine love, goodness, and 
 protection, to make them the signs and symbols 
 of human feelings and passions ; hence hopes) 
 fears, and desires, joys and sorrows, and all the 
 sentiments and emotions which sway and agitate 
 the soul of man, have had their appropriate 
 expression in these mute, yet eloquent letters 
 of the blooming " alphabet of creation :" 
 
 " By all those token flowers that tell 
 What words can ne'er express so well." BYRON. 
 
 Sings the poet of our day, adjuring his mistress 
 to believe in his truth and fidelity, and so, though 
 in somewhat different words, might have sung, 
 and very likely did sing, the Israelite of old on 
 the flowery banks of Jordan, the Babylonian in 
 his hanging gardens, or the swarthy son of 
 Egypt, who, kneeling by the mysterious Nile, 
 might have plucked the blossom of the bright 
 nymphoea, and putting it to his lips, and turning 
 to the earthly idol of his adoration, have said : 
 
18 LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS 
 
 " The lotus flower, whose leaves I now 
 
 Kiss silently, 
 
 Far more than words can tell thee how 
 I worship thee." MOORE. 
 
 This may be considered by some of our readers 
 a fanciful theory, but surely it has as good 
 foundations for its support, as many an hypo- 
 rnesis which has obtained universal approbation 
 and credit. 
 
 " When nature laughs out in all the triumph 
 of spring, it may be said, without a metaphor 
 that, in her thousand varieties of flowers, we 
 see the sweetest of her smiles ; that, through 
 them, we comprehend the exultation of her 
 joys : and that, by them, she wafts her songs 
 of thanksgiving to the heaven above her, which 
 repays her tribute of gratitude with looks of 
 love. Yes, flowers have their language. Theirs 
 is an oratory, that speaks in perfumed silence, 
 and there is tenderness, and passion, and even 
 the light-hearted ness of mirth in the variegated 
 beauty of their vocabulary. To the poetical 
 mind, they are not mute to each other ; to the 
 pious, they are not mute to their Creator. . . . 
 
LANGUAGE OP FLOWERS. 19 
 
 No spoken word can approach to the delicacy 
 of sentiment to be inferred from a flower sea- 
 sonably offered, the softest impression may thus 
 be conveyed without offence, and even profound 
 grief alleviated, a*t a moment when the most 
 tuneful voice would grate harshly on the ear, 
 and when the stricken soul can be soothed only 
 by unbroken silence." 
 
 But let us recur to the words of this " Pro- 
 fessor of the gentle art," and evidence their 
 truth by a few examples showing the effect of 
 " floral language" upon a mind stricken with 
 grief. Listen to PHILASTER : 
 
 " I have a boy, 
 
 Sent by the gods, I hope, to this intent, 
 Not yet seen in the court. Hunting the buck, 
 I found him sitting by a fountain's side, 
 Of which he borrowed some to quench his thirst, 
 And paid the nymph again as much in tears 
 A garland lay him by, made by himself 
 Of many several flowers, bred in the bay, 
 Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness 
 Delighted me. But ever when he turned 
 His tender eyes upon 'em, he would weep, 
 As if he meant to make 'em grow again. 
 Seeing such pretty helpless innocence 
 
20 LANGUAGE OP FLOWERS. 
 
 Dwell in his face, I asked him all his story. 
 
 He told me that his parents gentle died, 
 
 Leaving him to the mercy of the fields, 
 
 Which gave him roots, and of the crystal springs, 
 
 Which did not stop their courses ; and the sun, 
 
 Which still, he thanked him, yielded him his light. 
 
 Then took he up his garland, and did show 
 
 What every flower, as country people hold, 
 
 Did signify ; and how all, ordered thus, 
 
 Expressed his grief: And, to my thoughts, did read 
 
 The prettiest lecture of his country art 
 
 That could be wished. I gladly entertained him, 
 
 Who was as glad to follow, and have got 
 
 The trustiest, loving'st, and the gentlest boy, 
 
 That ever master kept. Him will I send 
 
 To wait on you, and bear our hidden love." 
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 
 
 Thus did the gentle boy mitigate his grief by 
 turning an emblematic wreath into a mute 
 expression of it. 
 
 " Give sorrow words : the grief, that does not speak, 
 Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break." 
 
 Says Malcolm to the bereaved husband and 
 father in " Macbeth," and this poor orphan 
 had hit upon a mode of giving his " sorrow 
 words," more touching, perhaps, than a more 
 loud and violent utterance could have ben. 
 
LANGUAGE OP FLOWERS. 21 
 
 Another bard has given us an example of the 
 power which he attributes to flowers for allaying 
 the tempest of grief, rage, and hate, passions 
 which sometimes meet and struggle for mastery 
 in the human bosom, rendering him whom they 
 control speechless, and sullen as the cloud, 
 before the rattling thunder and the vivid light- 
 ning breaks forth, to scathe and destroy. In 
 u The Bride of Abydos," Selim, after listening 
 to the taunts and reproaches of old Giaffir, 
 stands thus moody and silent, a prey to these 
 contending passions, when : 
 
 "To him Zulieka's eye was turned, 
 But little from his aspect learned; 
 * # # * # * 
 
 Thrice paced she slowly through the room, 
 And watched his eye it still was fixed : 
 She snatched the urn, wherein was mixed 
 
 The Persian Atar-guPs perfume, 
 
 And sprinkled all its odors o'er 
 
 The pictured roof and marbled floor ; 
 
 The drops, that through his glittering vetffc 
 
 The playful girl's appeal addressed, 
 
 Unheeded o'er his bosom flew, 
 
 As if that breast were marble too. 
 
 What, sullen yet ? it must not be 
 
 Oh ! gentle Selim, this from thee ?' 
 
22 LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
 
 She saw in curious order set 
 
 The fairest flowers of Eastern land 
 'He loved them once may touch them yet, 
 
 If offered by Zulieka's hand/ 
 The childish thought was hardly breathed 
 Before the rose was plucked and wreathed ; 
 The next fond moment saw her seat 
 Her fairy form at Selim's feet : 
 This rose, to calm my brother's cares, 
 A message from the Bulbul bears ; 
 It says to-night he will prolong, 
 For Selim's ear the sweetest song; 
 And though his note is somewhat sad, 
 He'll try for once a strain more glad, 
 With some faint hope his altered lay, 
 May sing these gloomy thoughts away/ 
 # * * - * * 
 
 He lived he breathed he moved he felt 
 He raised the maid from where she knelt; 
 His trance was gone his keen eye shone 
 With thoughts that long in darkness dwelt; 
 With thoughts that burn in rays that melt/' 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 Let us present our readers with another picture, 
 somewhat similar to the first, only that the grief 
 is here deeper and more irremediable : 
 
 "She lived on alms, and carried in her hand 
 Some withered stalks she gathered in the spring; 
 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 28 
 
 When any asked the cause, she smiled, and said 
 They were her sisters, and would come and watch 
 Her grave when she was dead. She never spoke 
 Of her deceased father, mother, home, 
 Or child, or heaven, or hell, or God, but still 
 In lonely places walked, and ever gazed 
 Upon the withered stalks, and talked to them ; 
 Till wasted to the shadow of her youth, 
 With woe too wide to see beyond, she died/' 
 
 POLLOK. 
 
 These withered stalks were to her as beautiful 
 and full of perfume as when they were first 
 plucked, and she regarded them as the friends 
 and companions of her youth, talking to them, 
 and receiving answers words of love and 
 affection. We are here reminded of poor 
 Ophelia, who in her madness made " fantastic 
 garlands" 
 
 "Of crow flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples/' 
 Of which it has been observed that they are 
 all emblematic flowers, the first signifying, Fair 
 Maid; the second, stung to the quick; the 
 third, her virgin bloom ; the fourth, under the 
 cold hand of death; and the whole being wild 
 flowers, might denote the bewildered state of 
 her faculties. 
 
24 LANGUAGE OF 7LOWBB8. 
 
 "It would be difficult," says the author of 
 this observation, " to find a more emblematic 
 wreath for this interesting victim of disappointed 
 love and filial sorrow." This is only one of 
 many instances in which our greatest poet has 
 displayed his fondness for flowers, and his 
 delicate appreciation of their uses and simili- 
 tudes. We have another in the " Winter's 
 Tale," where he makes Perdita give flowers to 
 her visitors appropriate to, and symbolical of, 
 their various ages. See Act 4, Scene 3. 
 
 The mystical Language of Flowers, as applied 
 to the passions and sentiments, appears to have 
 had its rise in those sunny regions where the 
 rose springs spontaneously from its native soil, 
 and the jessamine and the tuberose fill with 
 beauty and perfume alike the garden and the. 
 wilderness. 
 
 " Certainly," says a writer in the Edinburgh 
 Magazine of 1818, "the influence of this land 
 of the sun has been felt by the pilgrims from 
 our colder climes, and they have presented to 
 us a pleasing fable in the Language of Flowers, 
 and our imaginations have received with delight 
 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 25 
 
 the descriptions and interpretations with which 
 we have been favored from time to time. We 
 have dwelt on, till we have become enamored 
 of the delicate mode of expressing the rise and 
 progress of love by the gift of the tender rose- 
 bud, or the full blown flower. We have pitied 
 the despair indicated by a present of myrtle 
 interwoven with cypress and poppies, and we 
 believe that these emblems will never cease 
 to convey some similar sentiments, wherever 
 poetry is cultivated or delicacy understood." 
 The same author continues, "But" Oh, 
 reader, mark that "but," 'tis* a frightful word, 
 is it not ? ever coming to dissipate some bright 
 dream, to scare some beautiful phantom of the 
 imagination from our presence, and to guide our 
 wandering feet back into the world of cold 
 reality, where 
 
 " The mute expression of sweet nature's voices, 
 Are drowned amid the turmoil of life's noises ; 
 Where thoughts of fear and darkness come unbidden, 
 And love and hope are into silence chidden." H. G. A. 
 
 But we fear that the Turkish < Language of 
 
 Flowers,' which Lady Montague first made 
 
 8 
 
26 LANGVA'G-'E *0F FliOWERS. 
 
 popular in this country, has little claim to so 
 refined an origin, as either purity or the delicacy 
 of Dassion. We had been taught to believe 
 that it served as a means of communication 
 between the prisoners 'of the harem and their 
 friends or lovers without : but how could it be 
 thus used, when the emblematic nosegay must 
 convey as much intelligence to the guardians 
 and fellow-prisoners of one of the partie's, as to 
 the party herself? The truth appears to be 
 that the * Language of Flowers' and other 
 inanimate objects, has arisen in the idleness of 
 the harem, from the desire of amusement and 
 variety which the ladies shut up there, without 
 employment, and without culture, must feel. 
 It answers the purpose of enigmas, the solution 
 of which, amuses the vacant hours of the 
 Turkish ladies, and is founded on a sort of 
 crambo or bout rim&, of which M. HAMMER 
 has given not less than an hundred specimens." 
 We quote one of the specimens given by this 
 ingenious Frenchman, in the Turkish and Eng- 
 lish languages : 
 
 " Armonde wer bana bir Ominde." 
 " Pear Let me not Despair." 
 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 27 
 
 This, though not strictly floral, is the most 
 manageable as regards the translation that could 
 be hit upon, and we have therefore chosen it. 
 Sometimes a word has various meanings, as 
 various sentences rhyme with it ; for. instance : 
 
 " Rose You smile, but still my anguish grows. 
 Rose For thee my heart with love still glows." 
 
 Sometimes a double rhyme belongs to a single 
 word, as : 
 
 " Tea You are both sun and moon to me, 
 Your's is the light by which I see." 
 
 And often times two flowers combined may form 
 a stanza, as : 
 
 " The opening rose-bud shows how pure 
 
 My love for thee, thou charming maidj 
 The pink, alas ! thy proud disdain, 
 
 "With which my ardent passion's paid." 
 
 By the above examples, it- will be seen that 
 there is nothing on earth, in air, or water, to 
 which a meaning may not be attached, but 
 these meanings are very arbitrary, depending 
 more upon -the sound of words, which will 
 rhyme with the object named, than on any real 
 of fancied similarity of significance in their 
 
38 LANGUAGE OP FLOWERS. 
 
 nature or properties. But what a heresy is it 
 to call this system of arbitrary meanings the 
 "Language of Flowers;" what a departure 
 from that only true faith, the principal tenet of 
 which is a firm and fervent belief in the signifi- 
 cance of nature ! If God speaks in the elements 
 and who shall doubt ? if the winds, and the 
 waves, and the loud rattling thunders, testify of 
 his powder and .majesty, do not the forest trees 
 also, and the grasses of the fields, and the 
 beautiful blossoms which adorn like living 
 gems, the bosom of the earth, have not these 
 voices voices of instruction, and reproof, and 
 sympathy, and love, and all that is most gentle 
 and benign ? Assuredly they have ! Let us 
 then look upon them not as the mere play- 
 things of an idle hour, as gauds and decora- 
 tions for the frivolous and vain, but as something 
 too .sacred to be made the symbols of false 
 sentiments, and feigned, or evil passions. 
 
 Truly the real*" Language of Flowers" is no 
 system of unmeaning similitudes ; there is a 
 deeper significance attached to every plant and 
 flower, indeed to every object in nature, than 
 
LANGUAGE 'OF FLOWERS. 29 
 
 the mere sensualist or the shallow sentimentalist 
 would imagine ; and here are the words of one 
 who has studied them deeply, and knows that 
 they are types and characters of the glorious 
 revelation, second only to that direct one which 
 God has given us in the Bible. What says he: 
 
 " Listen k> the words of wisdom, 
 
 Uttered by the tongue of truth, 
 Tottering age and manly vigour^ 
 
 Listen ye and smiling youth." H. G, A. 
 
 Books are great and glorious agents of civili- 
 zation and happiness. They are the silent 
 teachers of mankind, filling the mind with 
 wisdom, and strengthening the understanding 
 for the strife of action ; making us powerful and 
 gentle, wise and humble, at the same time. 
 But we cannot be always buried in our books ; 
 we must sometimes go out into the sunshine, 
 and U is necessary, in order to enjoy our books, 
 that we should also enjoy the privilege of air 
 and light, drinking in health and vigor, to 
 enable us to make the best and most profitable 
 use of our sedentary hours. In direct opposi- 
 tion then to books, or rather in secret combination 
 
80 LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
 
 with them, we would place flowers the out-of- 
 door books Nature has so liberally provided for 
 us, in so rich a variety of types and bindings, 
 as to leave us no excuse for not gratifying all 
 our individual tastes. The lover of flowers has 
 this advantage over the lover of books, that he 
 can never be at a loss for variety; but we 
 suspect the classification is somewhat arbitrary, 
 and that there is hardly any one who loves the 
 one, who does not also love the other. The 
 best way to enjoy either is to enjoy both ; to 
 take them alternately, so that they may relieve 
 and show off each other to the best advantage. 
 A walk in an open field, and one hour spent in 
 gathering wild flowers, to be afterwards grouped 
 into a vase upon the library table, is by no 
 means the least suggestive preparation for a 
 morning's reading." Yes, and then, as we 
 inhale their balmy freshness, and look upon 
 their beautiful hues, we shall think of the spots 
 in which we have gatherered them, and our 
 spirits will become invigorated, our thoughts 
 more penetrating, and our minds strengthened 
 for the work before us. 
 
HOLY FLOWERS. 
 
 BY MARY HOWITT. 
 
 Mindful of the pious festivals which our church pre- 
 scribes, I have sought to make these charming objects of 
 floral nature, the time-pieces of my religious calendar, and 
 the mementoes of the hastening period of my mortality. 
 Thus I can light the taper to our Virgin Mother on the 
 blowing of the white snow-drop, which opens its floweret 
 at the time of Candlemas; the lady's smock, and the 
 daffodil, remind me of the Annunciation ; the blue hare- 
 bell, of the Festival of St. George ; the ranunculus, of the 
 Invention of the Cross ; the scarlet lychnis, of St. John 
 the Baptist's day ; the white lily, of the Visitation of our 
 Lady ; and the Virgin's bower, of her Assumption ; and 
 Michaelmas, Martinmas, Holyrood, and Christmas, have 
 all their appropriate monitors. I learii the time of day 
 from the shutting of the blossoms of the Star of Jerusalem 
 and the Dandelion, and the hour of the night by the stars. 
 
 A FRANCISCAN. 
 
 Ah ! simple-hearted piety, 
 In former days such flowers could see. 
 The peasant, wending to his toil, 
 Beheld them deck the leafy soil ; 
 
 81 
 
82 HOLYFLOWKR8. 
 
 They sprung around his cottage door ; 
 He saw them on the heathy moor ; 
 Within the -forest's twilight glade, 
 Where the wild deer its covert made ; 
 In the green vale remote and still, 
 And gleaming on the ancient" hill. 
 The days are distant now gone by 
 With the old times of minstrelsy ; 
 When all unblest with written lore, 
 Were treasured up traditions hoar ; 
 And each still lake and mountain lone, 
 Had a stern legend of its own ; 
 And hall, and cot, and valley-stream, 
 Were hallowed by the minstrel's dream. 
 
 Then, musing in the woodland nook 
 Each flower was as a written book, 
 Recalling, by memorial quaint, .*'-* ?* 
 The holy deed of martyred saint ; 
 The patient faith, which, unsubdued, 
 Grew mightier, tried through fire and blood. 
 One blossom, 'mid its leafy shade, 
 The virgin's purity portrayed ; 
 And one, with cup all crimson dyed, 
 poke of a Saviour crucified : 
 
HOLY FLOWERS. 38 
 
 And rich the store of holy thought 
 
 That little forest flower brought, 
 
 Doctrine and miracle, whate'er 
 
 We draw from books, was treasured there. 
 
 Faith, in the wild woods tangled bound, 
 
 A blessed heritage had found ; 
 
 And Charity and Hope were seen 
 
 In the lone isle, and wild ravine. 
 
 Then pilgrims, through the forest brown, 
 
 Slow journeying on from town to town, 
 
 Halting 'mong mosses green and dank, 
 
 Breathed each a prayer before he drank 
 
 From waters by the pathway side ; 
 
 Then duly morn, and eventide, 
 
 Before those ancient crosses grey, 
 
 Now mould'ring silently away, 
 
 Aged and young devoutly bent 
 
 In simple prayer how eloquent ! 
 
 For each good gift man then possessed 
 
 Demanded blessing, and was blest. 
 
 What though in our pride's selfish mood 
 We hold those times as dark and rude, 
 Yet give we, from our wealth of rnind, 
 More grateful feeling, or refined ? 
 
84 HOLT FLOWERS. 
 
 And yield we unto Nature aught 
 Of loftier, or of holier thought, 
 Than they who gave sublimest power 
 To the small spring, and simple flower ? 
 
 THE WATER LILIES. 
 
 There's a spring in the woods by my sunny 
 
 home, 
 
 Afar from the dark sea's tossing foam ; 
 Oh ! the fall of that fountain is sweet to hear, 
 As a song from the shore to the sailor's .ear ! 
 And the sparkle which up to the sun it throws. 
 Through the feathery fern and the olive boughs, 
 And the gleam on its path as its steals away 
 Into deeper shade from the sultry day ; 
 And the large Water-lilies that o'er its bed, 
 Their pearly leaves to the soft light spread ;. 
 These haunt me ; I dream of that bright spring's 
 
 flow, 
 I thirst for its rills like a wounded roe. 
 
 MRS. HENANS. 
 
THE ALBANIAN LOVE-LETTER. 
 
 BY LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 An exquisite invention this, 
 
 Worthy of Love's most honied kiss, 
 
 This art of writing billet-doux 
 
 In buds, and odors, and bright hues, 
 
 In saying all one feels and thinks, 
 
 In clever daffodils and pinks, 
 
 Uttering (as well as silence may) 
 
 The sweetest words the sweetest way : 
 
 How fit, too, for the lady's bosom, 
 
 The place where billet-doux repose 'em. 
 
 How charming in some rural spot, 
 Combining love with garden plot, 
 At once to cultivate one's flowers 
 And one's epistolary powers, 
 Growing one's own choice words and fancies 
 In orange tubs and beds of pansies ; 
 One's sighs and passionate declarations 
 In odorous rhet'ric of carnations ; 
 
 35 
 
36 THE ALBANIAN LOVE LETTER. 
 
 Seeing how far one's stock will reach ; 
 Taking due care one's flowers of speech 
 To guard from blight as well as bathos, 
 And watering, every day, one's pathos. 
 
 A letter comes just gathered, we 
 
 Boat on its tender brilliancy ; 
 
 Inhale its delicate expression 
 
 Of balm and pea ; and its confession, 
 
 Made with, as sweet a maiden blush 
 
 As ever morn bedevv'd in bush ; 
 
 And then, when we have kissed its wit, 
 
 And heart, in water putting it, 
 
 To keep its remarks fresh, go round 
 
 Our little eloquent plot of ground ; 
 
 And with delighted hands compose 
 
 Our answer, all of lily and rose, 
 
 Of tuberose and of violet, 
 
 And little darling (mignionette) ; 
 
 And gratitude and polyanthus, 
 
 And flowers that say, <' Felt never man thus 1 
 
THE FLOWER GIRL. 
 
 BY MRS. COBBOLD. 
 
 Come buy, come buy my mystic flowerSj 
 All ranged with due consideration, 
 
 And culled in fancy's fairy bowers, 
 To suit each age and every station. 
 
 For those who late in life would tarry, 
 I've tfnowdrops, winter's children cold , 
 
 And those who seek for wealth to marry 
 May buy the flaunting Marigold. 
 
 I've Ragwort, Ragged Robins, too, 
 
 Cheap flowers for those of low condition , 
 
 For Bachelors I've Buttons blue ; 
 And Crown Imperials for ambition. 
 
 For sportsmen keen, who range the lea, 
 
 I've Pheasant's Eye, and sprigs of Heather ; 
 
 For courtiers with the supple knee, 
 I've Parasites and Prince* s- Feather. 
 4 87 
 
38 THE FLOWER GIRL. 
 
 For thin, tall fops, I keep the Rush, 
 
 For peasants still am Nightshade weeding ; 
 
 For rakes, I've Devil-in-the-Bush, 
 For sighing Strephons, Love-lies- Bleeding, 
 
 But fairest blooms affection's hand 
 For constancy .and worth disposes, 
 
 And gladly weaves at your command, 
 A wreath of Amaranths and Roses. 
 
 THE BUD OF THE ROSE. 
 
 Her mouth, which a smile, 
 Devoid of all guile, 
 Half opened to view, 
 Is the bud of the rose, 
 In the morning that blows, 
 Impearled with the dew. 
 More fragrant her breath 
 Than the flower-scented heath 
 At the dawning of day ; 
 The lily's perfume, 
 The hawthorn in bloom, 
 Or the blossoms of May. 
 
FORGET ME NOT. 
 
 BiassoMs more rich and rare than thou 
 Msy twine round Beauty's graceful brow 
 
 In moods of sunny mirth ; 
 The Rose's or the Myrtle's flower 
 Might more beseem her festive hour, 
 And give, in Pleasure's careless bower, 
 
 To brighter fancies birth. 
 
 But in those moments, sad, yet dear, 
 When parting wakes Affection's tear, 
 
 Thy stainless blossom's braid, 
 Whose NAME forbids us to forget, 
 Would be the chosen coronet 
 Love on the loveliest brow would set 
 
 To crave fond Memory's aid. 
 
 When " earth to earth," and dust to dust," 
 The lov'd, lamented, we entrust, 
 
 What flower may grace the spot 
 Where sleep the reliques of the dead, 
 
 89 
 
40 FOBGET-ME-NOT. 
 
 For whom the frequent tear is shed, 
 
 Like thine which, from the grave's cold bed, 
 
 - Repeats " Forget me not !" 
 
 Yet not in pensive moods alone 
 Thy heart-appalling name we own 
 
 To love, to friendship dear ; 
 Were not that name with joy combin'd, 
 Were not thy bright blue blossoms twin'd 
 With hopes as bright thou wouldst not find 
 
 An honoured station here. 
 
 Not in our volume's opening leaf 
 Should flowers which only irnag'd grief 
 
 A mournful emblem stand ; 
 For unforgetting Love. ; whose light 
 Makes even sorrow's clouds look bright, 
 In joy and hope, with magic might, 
 
 The feeling can expand. 
 
 And therefore would we place thee here, 
 Symbol of hopes the heart holds dear, 
 
 In every clime and age ; 
 Thoughts lov'd in sunshine or in gloom, 
 
FORQET-ME-NOT. 41 
 
 Priz'd from the cradle to the tomb, 
 Prompt us to wreathe thy azure bloom 
 To deck our opening page. 
 
 Here, then, 'mid pointed leaves of green, 
 Be thy cerulean blossoms seen, 
 
 To grace our garden-plot ; 
 Nor would we prouder flowers entwine 
 Round Friendship's or Affection's shrine, 
 Than one which can recall, like thine, 
 
 The words " FORGET ME NOT !" 
 
 LOVE IN A ROSE-BUD. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 BY COLERIDGE. 
 
 As late each flower that sweetest blows 
 I plucked, the garden pride ; 
 
 Within the petals of a rose 
 A sleeping love I spied. 
 
 Around his brows a beamy wreath 
 
 Of many a lucent hue ; 
 All purple glowed his cheek beneath, 
 
 Inebriate with dew. 
 4* 
 
TO A DAISY. 
 
 BY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 BRIGHT flower, whose home is every where I 
 
 A pilgrim bold in Nature's care, 
 
 And oft, the long year through, the heir 
 
 Of joy or sorrow ; 
 Methinks that there abides in thee 
 Some concord with humanity, 
 Given to no other flower I see 
 
 The forest through ! 
 
 And wherefore ? Man is soon deprest ; 
 A thoughtless thing who, once unblest, 
 Does little on his memory rest, 
 
 Or on his reason : 
 
 But thou wouldst teach him how to find 
 A shelter under every wind ; 
 A hope for times that are unkind, 
 
 And every season. 
 
 42 
 
TO A BUNCH OF FLOWERS. 
 
 BY EEV. JAMES F. CLARKE. 
 
 LITTLE firstlings of the year ! 
 Have you come my room to cheer? 
 You are dry and parched, I think ; 
 Stand within this glass and drink ; 
 Stand beside me on the tabJe, 
 'Mong my books if I am able, 
 I will find a vacant space 
 For your bashfulness and grace ; 
 Learned tasks and serious duty 
 Shall be lightened by your beauty. 
 Pure affection's sweetest token, 
 Choicest hint of love unspoken, 
 Friendship in your help rejoices, 
 Uttering her mysterious voices. 
 You are gifts the poor may ofTer 
 Wealth can find not better proffer : 
 For you tell of tastes refined, 
 Thoughtful heart and spirit kind. 
 
 43 
 
44 TO A BUNCH OF FLOWEBflL 
 
 Gift of gold or jewel dresses, 
 Ostentation's thought confesses ; 
 Simplest mind this boon may give, 
 Modesty herself receive. 
 For lovely woman you were meant 
 The just and natural ornament, 
 Sleeping on her hosom fair, 
 Hiding in her raven hair, 
 Or, peeping out mid golden curls, 
 You outshine barbaric pearls ; 
 Yet you lead no thought astray, 
 Feed not pride nor vain display, 
 Nor disturb her sisters' rest, 
 * Waking envy in their breast. 
 Let the rich, with heart elate, 
 Pile their board with costly plate ; 
 Richer ornaments are ours, 
 Wo will dress our home with flowers ; 
 Yet no terror need we feel 
 Lest the thief break through to steal? 
 Ye are playthings for the child, 
 Gifts of love for maiden mild, 
 Comfort for the aged eye, 
 For the poor, cheap luxury. 
 
TO A BUNCH OP FLOWERS. 41 
 
 Though your life is but a day 
 Precious things, dear flowers, you say, 
 Telling that the Being good 
 Who supplies our daily food, 
 Deems it needful to supply 
 Daily food for heart and eye. 
 So, though your life is but a day, 
 We grieve not at your swift decay ; 
 He, who smiles in your bright faces, 
 Sends us more to take your places ; 
 'Tis for this ye fade so soon, 
 That he may renew the boon : 
 That kindness often may repeat 
 These mute messages so sweet . 
 That Love to plainer speech may get 
 Conning oft his alphabet ; 
 That beauty may be rain'd from heaven, 
 New with every morn and even, 
 With freshest fragrance sunrise greeting : 
 Therefore are ye, flowers, so fleeting. 
 
THE VIOLET. 
 
 VIOLETS ! deep-blue violets ! 
 
 April's loveliest coronets ! 
 
 There are no flowers grow in the vale, 
 
 Kissed by the dew, wooed by the gale, 
 
 None by the dew of the twilight wet, 
 
 So sweet as the deep-blue violet ! 
 
 I do remember how sweet a breath 
 
 Came with the azure light of a wreath 
 
 That hung round the wild harp's golden chords, 
 
 Which rang to my dark-eyed lover's words. 
 
 I have seen that dear harp rolled 
 
 With gems of the East and bands of gold ; 
 
 But it never was sweeter than when set 
 
 With leaves of the deep-blue violet ! 
 
 And when the grave shall open for me, 
 
 I care not how soon that time may be, 
 
 Never a rose shall grow on that tomb, 
 
 It breathes too much of hope and of bloom ; 
 
 But there be that flower's meek regret, 
 
 The bending and deep-blue violet ! 
 46 
 
LINES 
 
 SUGGESTED BT THE BIGHT OF SOME LATE AUTUMN 
 FLOWERS. 
 
 THESE few pale Autumn flowers, 
 
 How beautiful they are ! 
 Than all that went before, 
 Than all the summer store, 
 
 How lovelier far ! 
 
 And why ? they are the last ! 
 
 The last ! the last ! the last 
 Oh ! by that little word 
 How many thoughts are stirred, 
 
 That whisper of the past ! 
 
 Pale flowers ! pale perishing flowers, 
 
 Ye're types of precious things ; 
 Types of those better moments 
 That flit, like Life's enjoyments, 
 On rapid, rapid wings. 
 
 47 
 
Last hours with parting dear ones 
 (That time the fastest spends) ; 
 
 Last tears in silence shed ; 
 
 Last words half uttered ; 
 Last looks of dying friends. 
 
 Who but would fain compress 
 
 A life into a day, 
 The last day spent with one 
 Who, ere to-morrow's sun, 
 
 Must leave us, and for aye ! 
 
 precious, precious moments, 
 
 Pale flowers ; ye're types of those ; 
 The saddest, sweetest, dearest, 
 Because, like those, the nearest, 
 
 To an eternal close. 
 
 Pale flowers ! pale perishing flowers ! 
 I woo your gentle breath ; 
 
 1 leave the summer rose 
 For younger, blither brows ; 
 
 Tell me of change and death ! 
 
 ANON. 
 
THE HONEYSUCKLE. 
 
 BY THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. 
 
 SEE the honeysuckle twine 
 Round this casement : 'tis a shrine 
 Where the heart doth incense give, 
 And the pure affections live 
 In the mother's gentle breast 
 By her smiling infant press'd. 
 
 Blessed shrine ! dear, blissful home ! 
 Source whence happiness doth come ! 
 Round by the cheerful hearth we meet 
 All things beauteous all thing sweet- 
 Every solace of man's life, 
 Mother, daughter sister wife ! 
 
 5 49 
 
60 THE HONEYSUCKLE. 
 
 England, isle of free and brave, 
 Circled by the Atlantic wave I 
 Though we seek the fairest land 
 That the south wind ever fann'd, 
 Yet we cannot hope to see 
 Homes so holy as in thee. 
 
 As the tortoise turns its head 
 Towards its native ocean-bed, 
 Howsoever far it be 
 From its own beloved sea, 
 Thus, dear Albion, evermore 
 Do we turn to seek thy shore ! 
 
THE ROSE-BUD. 
 
 BY EEEBLE. 
 
 WHEN Nature tries her finest touch, 
 
 Weaving her vernal wreath, 
 Mark ye, how close she veils her round, 
 Not to be traced by sight or sound, 
 Nor soiled by ruder breath ! 
 
 Who ever saw the earliest rose 
 First open her sweet breast ? 
 Or, when the summer sun goes down, 
 The first soft star in evening's crown 
 Light up her gleaming crest ? 
 
 
 Fondly we seek the dawning bloom 
 
 On features wan and fair 
 The gazing eye no change can trace, 
 But look away a little space, 
 
 Then turn, and lo ! 'tis there. 
 
 51 
 
52 THE ROSE-BUD. 
 
 But there's a sweeter flower than e'er 
 
 Blushed on the rosy spray 
 A brighter star, a richer bloom 
 Than e'er did western heaven illume 
 At close of summer day. 
 
 'Tis love, the last best gift of heaven ; 
 
 Love gentle, holy, pure : 
 But tenderer than a dove's soft eye, 
 The searching sun, the open sky. 
 
 She never could endure. 
 
 Even human love will shrink from sigh 
 
 Here in the coarse rude earth : 
 How then should rash intruding glance 
 Break in upon her sacred trance, 
 
 Who boasts a heavenly birth ? 
 
 
 
 So still and secret is her growth, 
 
 Ever the truest heart, 
 Where deepest strikes her kindly root 
 For hope or joy, for flower or fruit, 
 
 Least known its happy part. 
 
THE BOSE-BUD. 
 
 53 
 
 God only, and good angels, look 
 
 Behind the blissful screen 
 As when, triumphant o'er his woes, 
 The Son of God, by moonlight rose, 
 
 By all but Heaven unseen : 
 
 As when the holy maid beheld 
 
 Her risen Son and Lord : 
 Thought has not colors half so fair 
 That she to paint that hour may dare, 
 
 In silence best adored. 
 
 The gracious Dove, that brougnt from heaven 
 
 The earnest of our bliss, 
 Of many a chosen witness telling, 
 On many a happy vision dwelling, 
 
 Sings not a note of this. 
 
 9 
 
 So, truest image of the Christ, 
 
 Old Israel's long-lost Son, 
 What time, with swe^t forgiving cheer, 
 He called his conscious brethren near, 
 
 Would weep with them alone 
 5* 
 
54 THE ROSE-BUD. 
 
 He could not trust his melting soul 
 
 But in his Maker's sight 
 Then why should gentle hearts and true 
 Bare to the rude world's withering view 
 Their treasures of delight ? 
 
 No let the dainty rose awhile 
 
 Her bashful fragrance hide 
 Rend not her silken veil too soon, 
 But leave her, in her own soft noon, 
 To flourish and abide. 
 
 THE SUNFLOWER. 
 
 BY THOMPSON. 
 
 Who can unpitying see the flow'ry race 
 Shed by the moon their new flush'd bloom resign 
 Before the parching beam ? so fades the face, 
 When fevers revel through their azure veins. 
 But one the lofty follower of the sun, 
 Sad when he sits, shuts up her yellow leaves, 
 Drooping all night, and when he warm returns 
 Points her enamour'd bosom to his ray. 
 
THE MOSS ROSE. 
 
 JPRQM THE GERMAN. 
 BY J. B. 
 
 THE Angel of the flowers one day, 
 
 Beneath a rose-tree sleeping lay ; 
 
 That spirit to whom charge is given 
 
 To bathe young huds in dews of Heaven ; 
 
 Awaking from his light repose, 
 
 The angel whispered to the rose : 
 
 Oh, fondest object of my care, 
 
 Still fairest found, where all is fair ; * 
 
 For the sweet shade thou giv'st to me, 
 
 Ask what thou wilt, 'tis granted thee !" 
 
 " Then," said the rose, with deepen'd glow, 
 
 66 On me another grace bestow." 
 
 The spirit paused in silent thought : 
 
 What grace was there the flower had not ? 
 
 'Twas but a moment o'er the rose 
 
 A veil of moss the angel throws ; - . 
 
 And robed in Nature's simplest weed, 
 
 Could there a flower that rose exceed ? 
 
 65 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS. 
 
 "Not a tree, 
 
 A plant, a leaf, a blossom but contains 
 A folio volume. We may read, and read, 
 And read again, and still find something new, 
 Something to please, and something to instruct, 
 E'en in the noisome weed." HURDIS. 
 
 FLOWERS have been, to the poets of all ages, 
 and in all countries, a never-failing source of 
 inspiration, and to mankind at large, " a joy, a 
 pure delight," from the creation even to the 
 present time ; and will be so, while we have 
 eyes to see, and hearts to understand and ap- 
 preciate the blessings that are scattered around 
 us, for, as KEATS says : 
 
 " A thing of beauty is a joy for ever ; 
 Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
 Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
 A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
 Full of sweet dreams and health. ^ 
 
 56 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS. 67 
 
 And is not a Flower " a thing of beauty ?" 
 is it not a thing of surpassing loveliness ? Who 
 can gaze on its exquisitely perfect form, its un- 
 rivalled brilliancy of hue, without a thrill of 
 admiration, and a sensation of pleasure ? 
 pleasure which passeth not away, but dwelleth 
 on the memory like a pleasant perfume, that 
 remains long after the object from whence it 
 emanated has perished ; and why is this ? 
 because of its purity, its freedom from aught 
 fliat is gross and therefore perishable. None, 
 we venture to aver, can gaze on those beautiful 
 fl alphabets of creation," those adorners of 
 earth's bosom, unmoved, but such as have hearts 
 utterly corrupted, and rendered impervious to 
 every sweet and gentle impression ; and even 
 such will at times feel stirring within them at 
 the sight, thoughts that have long slumbered, 
 and awakened by those " silent monitors," the 
 " still small voice of conscience" is heard, in- 
 citing them to shake off the trammels of guilt, 
 and return to the ways of pleasantness and 
 peace, wherein their feet once trod, when 
 
68 MORAL OP FLOWERS. 
 
 " The flowers in silence seemed to breathe 
 Such thoughts as language could not tell." BYRON. 
 
 We have called the flowers "silent monitors," 
 and not unadvisedly, for many are the lessons 
 they teach, of patient submission, meek endu- 
 rance, and innocent cheerfulness under the 
 pressure of adverse circumstances: 
 
 " They smilingly fulfil 
 
 Their Maker's will, 
 All meekly bending 'neath the tempest's weight 
 
 By pride unvisifced, 
 
 Though richly raimented, 
 As is a monarch in his robes of state." H. GL A. 
 
 Many are the moral precepts they inculcate, 
 bidding us admire the wisdom of their Omnipo- 
 tent Creator, in their infinite variety of forms 
 and colors, and perfect adaptation to the situa- 
 tions they occupy : 
 
 "Not a flower 
 
 But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain, 
 Of His unrivall'd pencil. He inspires 
 Their balmy odors, and imparts their hues, 
 And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes 
 In grains as countless as the sea-side sands, 
 The forms with which He sprinkles all the earth." 
 
 COWPBR. 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS. 69 
 
 Telling us to be grateful for these abundant 
 manifestations of His attention, not only to our 
 actual wants and necessities, but also to our 
 comforts and enjoyments ; opening to us this 
 source of pure and innocent gratification, in 
 order to strengthen us against the allurements 
 of folly, and wean our hearts from the guilty 
 pleasures of sensuality, into which they are 
 but too apt to be drawn : 
 
 " God might have bade the earth bring forth 
 
 Enough for great and small, 
 The oak-tree and the cedar-tree, 
 
 Without a flower at all. 
 He might have made enough, enough, 
 
 For every want of ours, 
 For luxury, medicine, and toil, 
 
 And yet have made no flowers. 
 
 Our outward life requires them not, 
 
 Then wherefore had they birth ? 
 To minister delight to man, 
 
 To beautify the earth ; 
 To whisper hope to comfort man 
 
 Whene'er his faith is dim, 
 For whoso careth for the flowers 
 
 Will care much more for him !" MART HOWITT. 
 
60 MOKAL OF FLOWERS. 
 
 Do they not also admonish us of the insta- 
 bility of earthly grandeur and beauty, by their 
 fragility and shortness of duration ? saying in 
 the language of the Psalmist : As for man, 
 his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so 
 he flourisheth ; for the wind passeth over it and 
 it is gone ; and the place thereof shall know it 
 no more." They teach us the utter foolishness 
 of that pride, which delighteth in personal 
 adornments and gaudy trappings ; for be our 
 dress ever so rich, the simplest flowers of the 
 field, that neither toil nor spin, are arrayed 
 much more sumptuously : 
 
 "Along the sunny bank or watery mead, 
 Ten thousand stalks their various blossoms spread: 
 Peaceful and lowly, in their native soil, 
 They neither know to spin, nor care to toil, 
 Yet, with confessed magnificene, deride 
 Our vile attire and impotence of pride." PRIOR. 
 
 It is thus they admonish the prosperous, the 
 proud, the uplifted in spirit ; but to the poor, 
 the lowly, and the fallen, they are as sympa- 
 thizing friends, whispering words of comfort 
 and hope, sharing their sorrows, and thus ren- 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS. 61 
 
 dering the burden easier to bear. And by 
 making them participators in our grief, we lose 
 that painful sense of loneliness and desolation 
 which ever accompanies the blighting of our 
 earthly prospects, and consequent desertion of 
 friends, (falsely so called) ; our minds are in- 
 sensibly drawn to the contemplation of His 
 infinite goodness and mercy, who ordaineth all 
 things for the best, and suffereth not a sparrow 
 to fall to the ground, nor a hair of our heads 
 to perish, unnoted. 
 
 We reflect on the many blessings He hath 
 vouchsafed us, all undeserving as we are, and 
 taught by the example of the Flowejs, whose 
 tiny hands are ever clasped in adoration, whose 
 breath is ever exhaled as an offering of praise 
 to the footstool of their Maker, we become re- 
 signed, nay, even cheerful, and prompted by 
 feelings of gratitude, our thoughts involuntarily 
 shape themselves into words of a like significa- 
 tion to the following : 
 
 " flowers that breathe of beauty's reign, 
 
 In many a tint o'er lawn and lea, 
 And give the cold heart onee again 
 A dream of happier infancy ; 
 (i 
 
62 MORAL OF FLOWERS. 
 
 And even on the grave can be 
 A spell to weed affection's pain 
 
 Children of Eden, who could see, 
 Nor own His bounty in your reign !" 
 
 ANNETTE TURNER. 
 
 Yes ! silent monitors though they be, they 
 are not voiceless, but gifted with an eloquence 
 divine that appeals alike to the heart and to the 
 understanding ; and would we but hearken to 
 their preaching, our bosoms would become as 
 well-springs of mutual piety peace and good 
 fellowships would prevail upon earth, and men 
 would be no more shedders of each other's 
 blood, and perpetrators of the blackest crimes : 
 but, alas ! 
 
 "Many in this dim world of cares, 
 Have sat with angels unawares." T. K. HERVEY. 
 
 And few, very few are they, who can behold 
 the bright countenances of heaven's messengers, 
 and listen to their discourse with an under- 
 standing spirit, for ambition and avarice, and 
 pride, have obscured our powers of vision, and 
 choked up the avenues to that treasure-house, 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS. 63 
 
 wherein lie hid our finer sensibilities and aspi- 
 rations after the only intrinsic good : 
 
 " The world is too much with us ,* late and soon, 
 Getting and spending we lay waste our powers, 
 Little we see in nature that is ours ; 
 We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon !" 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 But let us tear the film from before our eyes. 
 Let us endeavor to eradicate from our bosoms, 
 envy, hatred, and all evil passions. Let us 
 practise meekness and charity, and, as far as in 
 us lies, obey those holy impulses and .divine 
 incitements, which the Maker has implanted in 
 every human breast, and thus furnished us with 
 the means of working out our moral improve- 
 ment, if we do not ungratefully reject what is 
 intended for our benefit : 
 
 " There is a lesson in each flower, 
 A story in each stream and bower j 
 In every herb on which you tread, 
 Are written words, which rightly read, 
 Will lead you from earth's fragrant sod, 
 To hope, and holiness, and God." ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 Let us then peruse those lessons ; let us 
 
64 MORAL OF FLOWERS. 
 
 u read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" those 
 (( written words," so shall we profit thereby, 
 'xnd lay up in our hearts treasures whose value 
 is far above that of silver and gold more 
 precious than jewels from Golconda's. mines ; 
 treasures which neither moth nor nast may 
 corrupt, nor thieves break in and steal. 
 
 " Flowers, the sole luxury that nature knew, 
 
 In Eden's pure and spotless garden grew, 
 
 Gay without toil, and lovely without art, 
 
 They spring to cheer the sense, and glad the human hearth 
 
 Hear this, Oh, man of many sorrows ! thou 
 whose hopes are blighted, and on whose mind 
 grief sits, like an incubus, repressing all cheerful 
 thoughts, and sinking it deeper and deeper into 
 the gulph of despair ; hear the words of one 
 who was like thyself, a child of misfortune 
 " the melancholy COWLEY" but who yet from 
 the midst of the gloom that surrounded him, 
 could see the beneficence of the Almighty in 
 his works, and draw consolation therefrom. 
 Oh, shake off thy despondency I and go forth 
 rejoicing that to use the words of BASIL HALL, 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS. 65 
 
 " Nature has scattered around us on every 
 side, and for every sense, an inexhaustible pro- 
 fusion of beauty and sweetness, if we will but 
 perceive it;" for to continue the same writer 
 *< The pleasures we derive from flowers, from 
 musical sounds, and the forms of trees, are 
 surely not given us in vain, and if we are con- 
 stantly alive to these, we can never be in want 
 of subjects of agreeable contemplation, and must 
 be habitually cheerful." Yes most assuredly 
 
 "God made the flowers to beautify 
 The earth, and cheer man's careful mood, 
 And he is happiest who hath power 
 To gather wisdom from a flower, 
 And wake his heart in every hour 
 
 To pleasant gratitude/' WORDSWORTH. 
 
 It is only in contemplations such as these, 
 that we can hope to obtain true happiness ; the 
 feverish joys of the world are short-lived and 
 unsatisfactory ; like gilded dreams that haunt 
 the sick man's couch, making his waking hours 
 more painful from the contrast, they are ever 
 mingled with alloys ; it is a poisoned chalice 
 from which we drink the enchanted potion : 
 
66 MORAL OP FLOWERS. 
 
 the roses that adorn the garland of pleasure are 
 not unaccompanied by thorns, which lacerate 
 the brows of the wearers, and leave thereon 
 indelible scars : 
 
 " Alas the joys that fortune brings 
 Are trifling, and decay." GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Ambition ! what is it but a splendid vision ? 
 a gorgeous structure built by him who rears 
 his house upon the sands, where the waves are 
 constantly sapping its foundation. Pride ! will 
 pride uphold the sinking heart in the hour of 
 affliction ? true, it will not bend, but it will break; 
 then woe to the poor wretch who depends on it 
 for support. Even as a stormy ocean whose 
 billows are ever swelling and foaming, ready to 
 engulph those who venture on its bosom. 
 
 " I heard a thousand blended notes, 
 
 While in a grove I sate reclined, 
 In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts 
 
 Bring sad thoughts to the mind. 
 To her fair works did Nature link 
 
 The human soul that through me ran; 
 And much it grieved my heart to think 
 
 What man has made of man. 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS. 67 
 
 Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, ^ 
 The periwinkle trailed its wreaths ; 
 
 And 'tis my faith that every flower 
 
 Enjoys the air it breathes." WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Oh ! what a world of delightful thoughts and 
 sensations are opened to us by these exquisite 
 lines; how mighty are they to subdue every 
 stormy passion, and soften the asperities of our 
 nature; how humanizing is their influence upon 
 the mind ; again and again they recur to us, like a 
 sweet echo, until we are melted even to tears ; 
 the rock is smitten, and gives forth its gushing 
 waters ; the arid desert <4 blossoms like the rose !" 
 We reflect on " what man has made of man," 
 and resolve henceforward to use our utmost 
 endeavors to relieve the load of human misery, 
 for the creed which teaches that ' every flower 
 enjoys the air it breathes," while drawing 
 nearer to those radiant people rs of creation, 
 stirs, as it were by electricity, the golden links 
 of that sympathetic chain which binds us to our 
 fellow men, calling forth all our kindliest 
 feelings, and prompting us to acts of love. 
 Yes ! beautiful and radiant creatures ! as ye 
 
68 MORAL OF FLOWERS. 
 
 are the " visible tokens of the upholding Love !* 
 so are ye gifted with faculties and perceptions 
 to know and understand the errand of mercy 
 on which ye are sent, and to rejoice in being 
 made the instruments of divine bounty and 
 goodness. Ye participate in our joys and our 
 sorrows, weeping tears of balm to console us in 
 the time of adversity, and enhancing with your 
 smiles of innocent gaiety the pleasures of our 
 prosperous days ; but of our crimes ye know 
 nothing ; in our schemes of aggrandizement or 
 projects for the accumulation of wealth, ye take 
 no part, for base passions and sordid desires are 
 incompatible with the parity of your natures : 
 
 "To me ye seem 
 
 Like creatures of a dream 
 Aerial phantoms of delight; 
 
 I can but deem ye much 
 
 Too pure for mortal touch, 
 Ye are so very fair, so passing bright." H. G. A. 
 
 The friendships and affections ye entertain 
 one for another, though warm as the sunbeams 
 wherein ye delight to bask, are of an ethereal 
 character, and stainless as the dews by which 
 
MORAL OP FLOWERS. 69 
 
 ye are nourished and fed ; unlike those of us 
 mortals, too often degraded by animal impulses 
 and unworthy motives. 
 
 " Sweet nurslings of the vernal skies, 
 
 Bathed in soft airs and fed with dew, 
 What more than magic in you lies 
 
 To fill the heart's fond view ! 
 Relics are ye of Eden's bowers, 
 
 As soft, as fragrant, and as fair, 
 As those that crown'd the sunshine hours 
 
 Of happy wanderers there I" KEEBLE. 
 
 Beautiful are ye, exceedingly beautiful ! and 
 numberless are the strains of deep impassioned 
 eloquence, embodying " thoughts that breathe 
 and words that burn," to testify of the admira- 
 tion ye have excited in the breasts of those who 
 worship that power, 
 
 -"Which tunes the lip to songs and sighs, 
 
 And makes the heart a haunted shrine." L. B. A^ 
 
 Well have the poets sung of your loveliness 
 of your fragrance, and of your benign influence. 
 Grave divines have made sermons on you, and 
 expounded your holy teachings for the edifica 
 tion of man, 
 
70 MORAL OF FLOWERS. 
 
 "Floral apostles ! that in dewy splendor 
 
 Weep without Avoe, and blush without a crime, 
 Oh ! may I deeply learn, and ne'er surrender 
 
 Your lore sublime !'" HORACE SMITH. 
 
 Learned historians, and deep-thinking philo- 
 sophers, have turned them from the momentous 
 events of passed away times, and the labors of 
 scientific research, to admire your beautieb, and 
 speak of the moral ye convey. What says 
 FULLER, the sententious ? " A flower is the 
 best complexioned grass, as a pearl is the best 
 colored clay, and daily it weareth God's livery. 
 Solomon himself is outbraved therewith, as 
 whose gallantry only was adopted, and on him, 
 their's innate and in them. In the morning 
 (when it groweth up) it is a lesson of Divine 
 Providence ; in the evening (when it is cut 
 down, withered) it is a lesson of human mor- 
 tality.'' After this, who shall affirm that ye are 
 useless ? What advocate of utility will start up 
 and deny the truth of the following lines r 
 
 "Yet spite of all this eager strife, 
 The ceaseless play, the genuine life, 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS. 71 
 
 That serves the steadfast hours, 
 Is in the grass beneath that grows 
 Unheeded, and the mute repose 
 
 Of sweetly breathing flowers." WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Will the cold-hearted cynic smile, and will 
 the sneering sceptic make a mockery of our 
 words when we repeat this touching lesson ? 
 
 "God loveth all his creatures, 
 
 Doth bless them hour by hour; 
 Then will He not of man take heed, 
 Who so much beauty hath decreed 
 
 Unto the way-side flower ?" MARY HOWITT. 
 
 Perchance they may do so, but, oh ! we shall 
 love ye none the less ; none the less shall we 
 strive to express the feelings of gratitude, and 
 associations of pleasure, wherewith ye are so 
 intimately blended, exclaiming : 
 
 " ! if earth's ruined wilderness afford 
 
 So many flowers, breathing of love divine, 
 How gloriously that promised land must shine 
 That waits the followers of earth's mighty Lord!" 
 
 MRA. RICHARDSON. 
 
 Fair spirits are ye ministering angels ! 
 A writer, who has drunk deeply from the 
 well of inspiration, says : 
 
72 MORAL OF FLOWERS. 
 
 " And 'tis, and ever was my wish and way 
 To let all flowers live freely, and all die, 
 Whene'er their genius bids their souls depart, 
 Among their kindred, in their native place. 
 I never pluck the rose ; the violet's head 
 Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank 
 And not reproached me ; the ever sacred cup 
 Of the pure lily hath between my hands 
 Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost one grain of gold." 
 
 W. S. LANDOR. 
 
 What says JEAN PAUL RITCHER ? " There 
 are so many tender and holy emotions flying 
 about in our inward world, which, like angels, can 
 never assume the body of an outward act ; so 
 many rich and lovely flowers spring up which 
 bear no seed that it is a happiness poetry was 
 invented, which receives into its limbus all these 
 incorporeal spirits, and the perfume of all these 
 flowers." It has been our object in the fore- 
 going pages, and will be in those which follow, 
 to give shape and consistency to the many 
 beautiful and holy feelings, emotions and fancies, 
 which are drawn forth from the human heart 
 and brain, by the sight of flowers, to be hidden 
 amid the delicate petals, until summoned by the 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS. 73 
 
 call of poesy, to issue from their hiding places, 
 and irradiate Bie world of nature and imagina- 
 tion with their divine effluence. Well has it 
 been asked by whom we know not How 
 can the poet better employ his genius, than in 
 giving flowers a life as sweet, more lasting than 
 their own !" and how, we would respond, can 
 the moralist more faithfully perform the duties 
 of his office, than by drawing lessons of wisdom 
 and virtue from the most lovely objects in 
 creation, and applying those lessons to the 
 hearts and consciences of his fellow-creatures, 
 endeavoring thus to 'make them happier and 
 wiser ? 
 
 " With holy awe I cull the opening flower, 
 The hand of God hath made it, and where'er 
 The flow'ret blooms, there God is present also." 
 
 These are the words of LADY FLORA HAS- 
 TINGS, and in them we recognize a spirit akin 
 to our own ; it is good to bear about with us 
 ever a deep sense of the presence of the Creator 
 in His works, from the mightiest to the meanest, 
 and to be moved to devotion and praise, not only 
 7 
 
74 MORAL OF FLOWERS. 
 
 by that which is grand and sublime, but also by 
 the common and lowly. 
 
 " put away thy pride, 
 
 Or be ashamed of powep, 
 That cannot turn aside 
 
 The breeze that waves a flower." J. CLARB. 
 
 Yes! " Flowers are holy things" and meet 
 objects of our reverence as well as admiration ; 
 they claim from us both love and homage, the 
 former for their ineffable beauty and sweetness, 
 and the latter for inasmuch as that they are 
 manifestations of the divine power, skill, and 
 goodness of Him, who hath scattered them so 
 plentifully over the face of the earth. 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS.^ 75 
 
 THE FLOWER OF THE DESERT. 
 
 BY MRS. HE MANS. 
 
 "Who does not recollect the exultation of Vaillant 
 over a flower in the torrid wastes of Africa ? The affecting 
 mention of the influence of a flower upon the mind, by 
 Mungo Park, in a time of suffering and despondency, in 
 the heart of the same savage country, is familiar to every 
 one." 
 
 HOWITT'S BOOK OP THE SEASONS. 
 
 WHY art thou thus in thy beauty cast, 
 
 O lonely, loneliest flower; 
 Where the sound of song hath never pass'd 
 
 From human hearth or bower? 
 
 I pity thee, for thy heart of love, 
 
 For that glowing heart, that fain 
 Would breathe out joy with each wind to rove 
 
 In vain, lost thing ! in vain ! 
 
I pity thee, for thy wasted bloom, 
 
 For thy glory's fleeting hour, 
 For the desert place, thy living tomb 
 
 O lonely, loneliest flower ! 
 
 I said but a low voice made reply, 
 
 " Lament not for the flower ! 
 Though its blossoms all unmark'd must die, 
 
 They have had a glorious dower. 
 
 " Though it btooms afar from the minstrel's way 
 And the paths where lovers tread , 
 
 Yet strength and hope, like an inborn day, 
 By its odors have been shed. 
 
 '< Yes ! dews more sweet than ever fell 
 
 O'er island of the blest, 
 Were shaken forth, from its purple bell, 
 
 On a suffering human breast. 
 
 < A wanderer came, as a stricken deer, 
 
 O'.er the waste of burning sand, 
 He bore the wound of an Arab spear, 
 
 He fled from a ruthless band. 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS. 77 
 
 ** And dreams of home in a troubled tide 
 
 Swept o'er his darkening eye, 
 And he lay down by the fountain side, 
 
 In his mute despair to die. 
 
 '* But his glance was caught by the desert's flower, 
 
 The precious boon of Heaven ; 
 And sudden hope, like a vernal shower, 
 
 To his fainting heart was given. 
 
 " For the bright flower spoke of one above ; 
 
 Of the presence felt to brood 
 With a spirit of pervading love, 
 
 O'er the wildest solitude. 
 
 Oh ! the seed was thrown those wastes among 
 
 In a bless'd and gracious hour, 
 For the lorn one rose in heart made strong, 
 
 By the lonely, loneliest flower !" 
 
 7* 
 
78 MORAL OF FLO WEES. 
 
 THE FLOWER OF FENESTRELLA. 
 
 CHARLES VERAMONT, Count de Charney, is young and 
 possessed of boundless wealth. He outlives every enjoy- 
 ment ; and, literally through exhaustion of feeling, plunges 
 into a conspiracy against Napoleon, and is imprisoned for 
 life in the small fortress of Fenestrella. Solitude nearly 
 drives him mad; he curses fate, life, the world and he 
 denies God. Suddenly a small plant springs up between 
 two stones of the pavement; and to this plant he gives the 
 endearing name of Picciola. He actually forms a friend- 
 ship for it ; and at length loves it with all the force of 
 which that tender passion is susceptible. He by degrees 
 learns the value of life; is awakened to the beauty of the 
 world, and learns to acknowledge and worship God with 
 sincere and fervent piety. See Mrs. Gore's lt PICCIOLA." 
 
 Dull vapors fill the joyless air, 
 
 And cold the sunbeam falls 
 Within the court-yard, paved and bare, 
 
 'Neath Fenestrella's walls. 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS. 79 
 
 While winters upon winters roll, 
 
 There hath a captive trod ; 
 His was that madness of the soul 
 
 Which knows not of a God. 
 
 One morn between the clefts of stone 
 
 Two leaflets burst to view ; 
 And day by day, and one by one, 
 
 The fragile branches grew. 
 
 It grew nor canker knew nor blight, 
 'Neath sun, and storm, and shower; 
 
 A blessing to the captive's sight 
 It grew a dungeon flower ! 
 
 Oh, beautiful and gentle thing ! 
 
 Meek offspring of the sky ! 
 Comest thou, like a breath of spring, 
 
 To whisper and to die ! 
 
 The captive marked its growth, and felt 
 
 His soul subdued to tears : 
 That tender thing had power to melt 
 
 The gathered frosts of years 
 
80 MORAL OP FLOWERS. 
 
 He who had blindly trod the maze 
 
 Of learning and of power, 
 Stood watching with awakened gaze 
 
 The opening of a flower ! 
 
 He traced the powers of sun and dew 
 The light the breath that fanned; 
 
 And owned at length, to nature true, 
 His great Creator's hand. 
 
 Great God ! with pure and wise design, 
 
 Still, still 'mid all we see, 
 Thou blendest thus some mystic sign 
 
 Some voice which breathes of Thee ! 
 
 WARD'S MISCELLANY. 
 
 THE USE OF FLOWERS. 
 
 BY MARY HOWITT. 
 
 GOD might have bade the earth bring forth 
 
 Enough for great and small, 
 The oak-tree, and the cedar-tree, 
 
 Without a flower at all. 
 
MORAL OP FLOWERS. 
 
 81 
 
 He might have made enough, enough, 
 
 For every want of ours, 
 For luxury, medicine, and toil, 
 
 And yet have made no flowers. 
 
 f The ore within the mountain-mine 
 
 Requireth none to grow, 
 Nor doth it need the lotus-flower 
 To make the river flow. 
 
 The clouds might give abundant rain, 
 
 The nightly dews might fall, 
 And the herb that keepeth life in man, 
 
 Might yet have drank them all. 
 
 Then wherefore, wherefore were they made. 
 
 All dyed with rainbow light, 
 All fashioned with supremest grace, 
 
 Upspringing day and night ; 
 
 Springing in valleys green and low,' 
 
 And on the mountains high, 
 And in the silent wilderness, 
 
 Where no man passeth by ? 
 
82 MORAL OF FLOWERS. 
 
 Our outward life requires them not, 
 Then wherefore had they birth ? 
 
 To minister delight to man, 
 To beautify the earth ; 
 
 To whisper hope to comfort man - 
 Whene'er his faith is dim; 
 
 For whoso careth for the flowers 
 Will care much more for him ! 
 
 TO A FLOWER, 
 
 BY BARRY CORNWALL. 
 
 DAWN, gentle flower, 
 From the morning earth ! 
 
 We will gaze and wonder 
 At thy wondrous birth ! 
 
 Bloom, gentle flower ! 
 
 Lover of the light, 
 Sought by wind and shower, 
 
 Fondled by the night ! 
 
MORAL OF FLOWERS 83 
 
 Fade, gentle flower ! 
 
 All thy white leaves close ; 
 Having shown thy beauty, 
 
 Time 'tis for repose. 
 
 Die, gentle flower, 
 
 In the silent sun ! 
 Soh all pangs are over, 
 
 All thy tasks are done ! 
 
 Day hath no more glory, 
 
 Though he soars on high 
 Thine is all man's story, 
 
 Live and love and die I 
 
A SONG OF THE KOSE. 
 
 BY MRS. HEMANS. 
 
 ROSE ! what dost thou here ? 
 
 Bridal, royal rose ? 
 How, 'midst grief and fear, 
 Canst thou thus disclose 
 
 That fervid hue of love which to thy heart-leaf 
 glows ? 
 
 Rose i too much array'd 
 For triumphal hours, 
 Look'st thou through the shade 
 
 Of these mortal bowers, 
 
 Not to disturb my soul, thou crown'd one of all 
 flowers ! 
 
 As an eagle soaring 
 
 Through a sunny sky, 
 As a clarion pouring 
 
 Notes of victory, 
 So dost thou kindle thoughts, for earthly life too 
 
 high 
 84 
 
' * 
 
SONaOFTHEROSE. 85 
 
 Thoughts of rapture, flushing 
 
 Youthful poet's cheek, 
 Thoughts of glory rushing 
 Forth in song to break, 
 But finding the spring-tide of rapid song too 
 
 weak. 
 Yet, oh ! festal rose, 
 
 I have seen the$ lying 
 In thy bright repose 
 
 Pillow'd with the dying, 
 Thy crimson by the life's quick blood was 
 
 flying. 
 
 Summer, hope, and love 
 O'er that bed of pain, 
 Meet in thee, yet wove 
 Too, too frail a claim 
 
 In its embracing links the lovely to detain. 
 Smilest thou, gorgeous flower ? 
 
 O ! within the spells 
 Of thy beauty's power 
 Something dimly dwells, 
 At variance with a world of sorrows and fare- 
 wells. 
 
86 SONCJOFTHEKOSE. 
 
 All the soul forth flowing 
 
 In that rich perfume, 
 All the proud life glowing 
 
 In that radiant bloom, 
 Have they no place but here, beneath the o'er- 
 
 shadowing tomb ? 
 Crow'n'st thou but the daughters 
 
 Of our tearful race I 
 Heaven's own purest waters 
 Well might bear the trace 
 Of thy consummate form, melting to softer grace. 
 Will that clime enfold thee 
 
 With immortal air 
 Shall we not behold thee 
 
 Bright and deathless there ? 
 In spirit-lustre clothed, transcendently more 
 
 fair? 
 Yes ! my fancy sees thee 
 
 In that light disclose, 
 And its dream thus frees thee 
 
 From the mist of woes, 
 
 Darkening thine earthly bowers, O bridal, royal 
 rose 
 
CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
 
 CHILDHOOD is especially the season of flowers, 
 and hence the poets have very appropriately 
 compared that early period of our existence to 
 the spring-time of the year, when, 
 
 " There'*? perfume upon every wind, 
 
 Music in every tree 
 Dews for the moisture-loving flowers 
 
 Sweets for the sucking bee ; 
 The sick come forth for the healing breeze, 
 
 The young are gathering flowers, 
 And life is a tale of poetry, 
 
 That is told by golden hours." N. P. WILLIS. 
 
 It is then that flowers are to us a source of 
 exquisite soul-thrilling delight ; we revel amid 
 them as careless and free-hearted as their own , 
 worshipper, the butterfly ; inhaling their fra- 
 grance, and gazing on their beautiful tints with 
 
 87 
 
88 CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
 
 a pleasure for which we know not how to 
 account; it is an admiration implanted in us 
 by the Great Maker for the most lovely of His 
 creations : 
 
 " Go, mark the matchless workings of the power, 
 That shuts within the seed the future flower; 
 Bids these in elegance of form excel 
 In colour these, and those delight the smell ; 
 Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies, 
 To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes." 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 Let the infant, peevish and fretful from suffering 
 under one of the many disorders to which infancy 
 is peculiarly liable, be shown a flower, and how 
 quickly will the tears be changed to smiles ; how 
 eagerly will he endeavour to obtain it, clapping 
 his little chubby hands, and crowing again with 
 excess of glee ; and when in possession of the 
 prize so much coveted, how will he strive, by 
 chuckling laughter, and broken lispings, to ex- 
 press his admiration, turning it round and round, 
 and viewing it on all sides, his eyes sparkling 
 the while, like the bubbles on a sun-lit foun- 
 tain : 
 
CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 89 
 
 " Tis now the poetry of life to thee ! 
 With fancies fresh and innocent as flowers, 
 And manners sportive as the free-wing'd air; 
 Thou seest a friend in every smile ; thy days 
 Like singing birds, in gladness speed along, 
 And not a tear that trembles on thy lids, 
 But shines awp,y, and sparkles into joy." 
 
 ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 
 
 Even the universal desire manifested by chil- 
 dren to pull flowers to pieces, we are inclined 
 to think, arises from an impression that by so 
 doing, they will be enabled to discover the source 
 of such delightful sensation, and take their fill 
 at once, as the boy in the fable is said to have 
 destroyed the bird which laid golden eggs, 
 in order to enrich himself with the precious 
 store he supposed it to contain ; and this im- 
 pression is further confirmed by watching the 
 earnestness with which they proceed in the 
 work of destruction, carefully examining every 
 petal until the whole are plucked off, and the 
 disappointment with which they turn from the 
 scattered fragments : What an emblem, are 
 those shattered flowers, of the objects of our 
 desires in riper years ; how eagerly do we 
 8* 
 
90 CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
 
 grasp them, and what disappointment ensues 
 to find them wither in our hands, without 
 yielding the happiness we unreasonably ex- 
 pected from them ; and why ? not because 
 they are incapable of so doing, but that we, like 
 foolish children, wishing to obtain a surfeit of 
 sweets, enjoyed them not temperately. We 
 are even, as the poet says, 
 
 " Like babes, that pluck an early bud apart 
 To know the dainty colour of its heart." * 
 
 THOMAS HOOD. 
 
 Man ! Man ! thou art ever repining and discon- 
 tented ; but didst thou not abuse the good gifts 
 showered around thee by a gracious Providence, 
 how happy might'st thou be in this beautiful 
 world, exclaiming, 
 
 " These are thy wonders, Lord of Lore ! 
 
 To make us see we are but flowers that glide, 
 Which when we once can find and prove, 
 Thou hast a garden for us where to bide j 
 Who would be more, 
 Swelling through store, 
 Forfeit their paradise by their pride. 1 ' 
 
 GEORGE HEBBEBT. 
 
CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 91 
 
 But to return to the season of youth to the 
 spring-time of Jife when flowers-are scattered 
 about our path, thickly as stars in the firma- 
 ment of night, and we sport like lambs in the 
 verdant meads, heedless of what the future may 
 bring : Fearless, beautiful boyhood ! beloved 
 of nature, who, like a kind school-mistress, sits 
 upon the hills, and claps her hands in joy at 
 his pastime, giving him the earth and all its 
 landscapes at once, for his school and play- 
 ground and then the rocks and woods re-echo 
 his mirth ; and then in thoughtful silence wan- 
 dering away, the quiet nooks enclose him with 
 their greenness, "making companions of every- 
 thing animate and inanimate endowed with 
 beauty ; searching with a worshipping curiosity 
 into every leaf and flower about his path, while 
 the boughs bend to him and touch him with 
 their sunshine ; picking up lessons of present 
 delight and future wisdom, by rivers' sides, by 
 brooks, in the glens, and in the fields ; inhaling, 
 in every breath he draws, intelligence and 
 health." Thus, says CHRISTOPHER NORTH, that 
 " grey-haired man of glee" whose writings 
 
92 CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
 
 breathe all the freshness and sparkling vivacity 
 of early youth are redolent of sunshine, and 
 fragrance, and vernal melody. Long may he 
 live to delight the readers of MAGA with the 
 outpourings of his joyous spirit, transporting them 
 in fancy to the wild solitudes of his native hills; 
 where the cares and vexations of the busy 
 world are all forgotten, and the heart holdeth 
 commune with the Great Invisible, purified 
 from aught that is gross and unworthy by the 
 blessed influence of natural piety, which teacheth 
 man to know himself for what he is, a worm 
 crawling upon the face of the earth, a grain of 
 dust liable to be swept away*by the slightest 
 breath ; yet, withal, gifted and endowed with 
 powers and faculties, which if rightly employed, 
 will place him but < a little lower than the 
 angels ;" where 
 
 " The inner spirit keepeth holiday 
 Like vernal ground to Sabbath sunshine left." 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 And we, reflecting on the wondrous attributes 
 wherewith the beneficent Creator hath invested 
 
CHILD RE AN I; FLOWERS. 93 
 
 frail mortality, exclaim, with the Prince of Den- 
 mark, " What a piece of work is manl How 
 noble in reason ! How infinite in faculties ! 
 in form and moving, how express and admirable ! 
 in action, how like an angel ! in apprehension, 
 how like a god ! the beauty of the world ! the 
 paragon of animals !" 
 
 But we are wandering from the path of our 
 subject, and must crave the reader's indulgence 
 while we retrace our steps, premising however, 
 that it will not be the last time, by many, that 
 we shall have occasion to do the like, being as 
 one who walketh in a pleasant garden, where 
 each fresh object holds out a greater temptation 
 than the last, to make us pause and examine its 
 beauties, until we become fairJy confused by 
 admiration, and dazzled with excess of light. 
 
 " A mother kind walks forth in the even, 
 She, with her little son, for pleasure given 
 To tread the fringed banks of an amorous flood, 
 That with its music courts a sylvan wood; 
 There ever talking to her only bliss, 
 That now before, and now behind her is, 
 She stoops for flowers, the choicest may be had, 
 And bringing them to please her little lad, 
 
94 CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
 
 Spies in his hand some baneful flower or weed, 
 Whereon he 'gins to smell, perchance to feed, 
 With a more earnest haste she runs to him 
 And pulls them from him." WILLIAM BROWNE. 
 
 Who can look upon the above picture, 
 limned by the hand of one of Britain's sweetest 
 pastoral poets, without having the tenderest re- 
 collections awakened within him, of a parent, 
 now perchance sleeping in the cold church-yard, 
 or if not so, divided from him by a wide gulph 
 of worldly cares and interests, no longer exer- 
 cising a judicious control over his actions ; no 
 longer with a firm yet gentle hand, pulHng from 
 him the baneful weeds of folly, and flowers, 
 beautiful in appearance, and endued with fra- 
 grancy, but fraught with a subtle poison, 
 which pleasure scatters over the pathway of 
 man, luring him to tarry in her voluptuous 
 bowers, and steep his soul in sensual delights, 
 whereafter come repentance and vain self-re- 
 proach, for precious time thus idly squandered, 
 and opportunities irrevocably lost. 
 
CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 95 
 
 " Oh, lovely flowers ! the earth's rich diadem, 
 Bright resurrection from her sable tomb, 
 
 Ye are the eyes of Nature ! her best gem 
 With you she tints her face with living bloom, 
 And breathes delight in gales of rich perfume : 
 
 Emblems are ye of heaven, and heavenly joy, 
 And starry brilliance in a world of gloom, 
 
 Peace, innocence, and guileless infancy, 
 
 Claim sisterhood with you, and holy is the tie." Q. 
 
 Aye ! in sooth, " holy is the tie !" Is there 
 one of our readers who will not subscribe to 
 the truth of this sentiment ? Is there aught so 
 pure, so perfectly blameless in its nature, as the 
 love we cherish in early years for all things fair 
 and gentle, but more especially for flowers; 
 may they find a place in our bosoms, when we 
 become traffickers in the busy mart, and actors 
 in the great drama of existence ? Whence arises 
 the pleasure that we ever experience at the 
 sight of a flower, but from an association of 
 ideas ? Does not the jaded mind immediately 
 return to drink from the untainted waters of 
 that fount of feeling, the stream of which, since 
 it left the emerald meads of childhood, has 
 become turgid to the eye, and bitter to the taste I 
 
96 CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
 
 Well may MADAME DE GENLIS, recurring to 
 the scenes of her early life, write thus : " Oh, 
 how much sweeter is it to recall to my mind 
 the walks and sports of my happy childhood, 
 than the pomp and splendour of the palaces 
 I have since inhabited ! All the courts, once so 
 brilliant, are now faded. All the projects which 
 were then built with so much confidence, are 
 become chimeras. The impenetrable future has 
 cheated alike the security of princes, and the 
 ambition of courtiers. Versailles is dropping 
 into ruins ; the delicious gardens of Chantilly, 
 of Villers-Coterets, of Sceaux, of Isle-Adam, 
 are destroyed. I should now look in vain for 
 the vestiges of that frail grandeur which I once 
 admired there ; but I should find the banks of 
 the Loire as smiling as ever, the meadows of 
 St. Aubin as full of violets and lilies of the val- 
 ley, and its woods loftier and fairer. There 
 are no vicissitudes for the eternal beauties of 
 nature ; and while, amidst blood-stained revolu- 
 tions, palaces, marble columns, statues of bronze/ 
 and even cities themselves disappear, the simple 
 
CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 97 
 
 flowers of the field, regardless of the storm, grow 
 into beauty, and multiply for ever." Yes ! 
 
 " The wilding rose, sweet as thyself, 
 
 And new-cropp'd daisies are thy treasure ; 
 I'd gladly part with worldly pelf, 
 
 To taste again thy youthful pleasure." 
 
 JOANNA BAILLIE. 
 
 Says the first of Scotland's poetesses, addressing 
 a child ; and the Northamptonshire peasant, in 
 his own peculiar sweet, though mournful strains, 
 thus sings of early delights : 
 
 " Those joys which childhood calls it own, 
 
 Would they were kin to men ! 
 Those treasures to the world unknown, 
 
 When known, are withered then ! 
 But hovering round her growing years, 
 
 To gild Care's sable shroud, 
 Their spirit through the gloom appears, 
 
 As sun behind a cloud." JOHN CLARE. 
 
 This is but one of the many instances in which 
 he recurs to the flowery pleasures of childhood, 
 and he is but one of the many thousands who 
 have recorded in golden numbers their joyful 
 recollections of that delightful period of exist- 
 ence, when 
 
 9 
 
98 CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
 
 " We tread on flowers, flowers meet our every glance, 
 It is the scene, the season of romance, 
 
 The very bridal of the earth and sky/' 
 
 JOSIAH CONDOR. 
 
 MRS. HEMANS, in one of her letters to a friend, 
 says : " I really think that fine passion for 
 flowers is the only one which long sickness 
 leaves untouched with its chilling influence. 
 Often during this weary illness of mine, have I 
 looked upon new books with perfect apathy, 
 when if a friend has sent me a few "flowers, my 
 heart has leaped up to their dreamy hues and 
 odours, with a sudden sense of renovated child- 
 hood, which seems to me one of the mysteries 
 of our being." How many instances might be 
 quoted to show the prevalence of this mysterious 
 feeling. How often, when the frame has become 
 worn out by disease, and while the sufferer was 
 calmly awaiting the approach of death ; when 
 all the joys, sorrows, hopes, and fears of mor- 
 tality have faded away, even as a dream, from 
 the memory, the scenes and circumstances of 
 childhood, forgotten amid the turmoil of stormy 
 passions and painful anxieties, have arisen 
 
CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 9 ( J 
 
 before him in all their pristine freshness and 
 beauty. The soul, as it approaches more nearly 
 to its Creator, becomes purified ; the fogs arid 
 mists of prejudice and folly are swept away, 
 and it is enabled more clearly to distinguish, 
 and better to appreciate the value of that state 
 of innocence, which is an antetype of the angelic. 
 It longs to be once more as a little child, having 
 now -come to a right understanding of our 
 Saviour's words, Suffer little children to 
 come unto me, and forbid them not ; for of 
 such is the kingdom of Heaven. 11 
 
 " Oh, world of sweet phantoms, how pleasant thou art ! 
 The past is perpetual youth to the heart." L. E. L. 
 
 Sang one who perished, like a just expanded 
 rose on which the blight has suddenly fallen ; 
 and KEATS, the pure, the gentle-hearted, he, 
 
 " Who grew 
 
 Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished, 
 And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew." SHELLS p, 
 
 Was it not this feeling which prompted him, 
 on the bed of dissolution, to exclaim, that " he 
 felt the daisies growing over him ?" 
 
100 CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
 
 Another poet, who passed a weary and a 
 toilsome life, 
 
 " Chained to the desk, the world's o'er-laboured slave," 
 Thus recurs to the sweet morn of existence ; 
 
 " How beautiful 
 
 The vernal hour of life. Then pleasure wings 
 With lightning speed the moments, and the sun 
 Burns brightly, and nor cloud nor storm appears 
 To darken the horizon. Hope looks out 
 Into the dazzling sheen, and fondly talks 
 Of summer, and Love comes, and all the air 
 Rings with wild harmonies." CARRINGTON. 
 
 Alas ! that he should have found occasion to 
 draw the veil of disappointment and regret over 
 this bright picture. 
 
 " If people would he wfae enough through 
 life to derive - enjoyment from such innocent 
 pleasures as delighted them in childhood, we 
 should find far fewer sour tempers, cold hearts, 
 and narrow minds in the world. All, except 
 positive idiots, are' endowed by God with a por- 
 tion of that beautiful poetry of existence, which 
 in childhood is so conspicuously evident, teach- 
 
CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 101 
 
 ing even the infant in the nurse's arms to snatch 
 at flowers and laugh in the sunshine !" These 
 are the words of Miss TWAMLEY, one, whose 
 name we cannot mention, but straightway there 
 rise before us visions of floral loveliness, filled with 
 all fair shapes and rainbow hues ; we breathe an 
 atmosphere of perfume, and our sense of hearing 
 becomes so acute, that we can even distinguish, 
 amid the grand symphony of nature, the pecu- 
 liar chime *>f the harebells, which this lady 
 likens to fairy music, a symphonious peal, 
 rung out just as twilight steals over the land- 
 scape, to summon the tiny folk to their revels, 
 when they 
 
 *' Knit hands, and beat the ground 
 
 In alight fantastic round. " 
 
 But why, " oh, lady fair!" say " all, except 
 positive idiots?" Have these no share, think 
 ye, in the poetry of existence ?" Do they 
 not love to inhale the perfume, and gaze on the 
 forms and hues of flowers ? Do they not listen 
 with delight to the singing of birds, the gurg- 
 ling of running streams, and the waving of leafy 
 9* 
 
102 CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
 
 trees? For our part, we think that the life of 
 an idiot, is one of perpetual childhood ; that he 
 is gifted with a double portion of simple and 
 innocent enjoyments, to compensate for the loss 
 of those which result from a right employment 
 of man's intellectual and moral powers : Oh, 
 tell us not that the idiot is deprived of a share 
 in the " poetry of existence !" Is he not the 
 companion of the bird, and the bee, and the 
 butterfly ? Does he not lie about in the green 
 meads, basking in the sunshine ? Does he not 
 plait rushes by the streamlet's brim, and talk to 
 his own image reflected on its glassy surface ? 
 Does he not hide him in flowery nooks and 
 dingles, laughing like a very incarnation of 
 gladness, and murmuring snatches of sweet old 
 ballads ? Even in his melancholy moods, 
 save during those periods when he is possessed 
 by fears, the more terrible from their vague- 
 ness and they are not generally of long dura- 
 tion, his state seems to be that of passive en- 
 joyment. 
 
 And who shall say that he is unhappy ? 
 The tears he shed flow not from disappointment 
 
CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 108 
 
 or regret. He has no fears for the future, no 
 ambitious longings, no unruly desires, that never 
 can be gratified, to vex him J So his physical 
 wants be attended to, what cares he how the 
 world wags ; how thrones and empires totter ; 
 how misery and vice progress ; how disease 
 and death afflict nations and individuals. Does 
 he wish to become a king ? straightway his 
 " cone-like head" bears a regal diadem, his tat- 
 tered habiliments are changed to purple robes, 
 blazing with jewelry, and the bough he " twirls" 
 is the sceptre, which symbolizes his command 
 over half the globe. Does he wish ? but it 
 were useless to pursue this subject further ? he 
 is a poet, a philosopher, aught which may 
 suit the whim of the moment, yet free from the 
 harassing cares, griefs, and anxieties, which but 
 too often render miserable the lives of those who 
 play such conspicuous parts in the great drama 
 of mortality. CRABBE, who was a most faithful 
 delineator of human life in all its phases, and 
 under all circumstances, speaking of the inmates 
 of the village poor-house, says 
 
 N 
 
104 CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
 
 "The blind, the lame, and far the happiest they ! 
 The moping idiot, and the madman gay." 
 
 Even amid our tears of pity'for poor Ophelia 
 we cannot help feeling in some degree rejoiced; 
 that her mind has become a blank, bearing no 
 record of her former woes and sufferings, so 
 that she can now find pleasure and amusement 
 in twining garlands and carolling songs, as in 
 the days of her childhood. As well might it be 
 said because the tunes of the ^Eolian harp are 
 wild and wandering, that it gives out no melody 
 to the touch of the soft breezes, as that the mind 
 of an idiot, which is moved by sudden impulses 
 and gusts of passion, responds not to those holy 
 influences, which the God of nature has scat- 
 tered through the material universe, and which 
 constitute " the poetry of existence." 
 
 There are those, who tell us, that youth is 
 not the most happy period of existence ; that 
 the sorrows of childhood, though light in com- 
 parison with those we experience in after years, 
 are as weighty in proportion to the powers of 
 endurance that we then possess. They say : 
 
 " 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view." 
 
CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 105 
 
 And our only reason for recurring with such tr 
 tenderness to the scenes and pleasures of by- 
 gone times, is that we are ever dissatisfied with 
 our present lot, and inclined to murmur at the 
 decrees of Providence. But, oh, this is a vain 
 philosophy ! Reason may preach and moralize 
 after this fashion, but Feeling denies the 
 truth of the inference drawn. The very cir- 
 cumstance of our forgetfulness with regard to 
 the griefs and troubles of childhood, proves their 
 trifling and easily effaceable nature. Is it so 
 with the cares and anxieties of maturity ? 
 Where is the favoured mortal who, if his bosom 
 were laid bare, would not exhibit traces of 
 wounds, many freshly bleeding, and scars too 
 deep ever to be effaced ? " The many ills to 
 which the flesh is heir," when do they come 
 most thickly upon us ? not in the early days ! 
 not in the spring of life ! but in the summer, 
 and the autumn, and the winter ; 'tis then the 
 desolating tempest sweeps over the landscape, 
 and we behold the buds of hope, and the full- 
 blown flowers of joy, alike withered, scattered, 
 and destroyed. This, it may be said, is a 
 
106 CHILDREN AND FLOWERS. 
 
 melancholy picture of human life ; " 'tis true, 
 'tis pity, pity 'tis, 'tis true," in the generality 
 of cases, and where there is one, whose heart is 
 unscathed by the burning finger of affliction, 
 there are thousands who might exclaim, with 
 LADY RANDOLPH : 
 
 "Have you not sometimes seen an early flower 
 Open its bud, and spread its silken leaves, 
 To catch sweet airs, and odours to bestow; 
 Then by a keen blast nipt, pull in its leaves, 
 And though still living, die to scent and beauty ? 
 Emblem of me j Affliction, like a storm, 
 Hath killed the forward blossoms of the heart." 
 
 HOME'S DOUGLAS. 
 
 Let it not be supposed by this, that we are 
 unaware of the truth of the scripture proverb, 
 which saith, " whom the Lord loveth he 
 chasteneth," or that we would advocate the 
 indulgence of a morbid feeling of regret for 
 past-away pleasures. We humbly acknow- 
 ledge the Avisdom and justice of the Supreme 
 Disposer of events, and firmly believe that 
 adversity, 
 
 " Though like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
 Bears yet a precious jewel in his head." SHAKSPEARE. 
 
CHILDREN AND T LOWERS. 107 
 
 But even while acknowledging this, our thoughts 
 will revert regretfully to the sweet memories of 
 early days, and we cannot help saying to the 
 child :- 
 
 " Linger yet upon the hour, 
 Of the green leaf and the flower j 
 Art thou happy ? For thy sake 
 Do the birds their music make 
 Birds with golden plumes, that bring 
 Sunshine from a distant spring, 
 For thine eyes the roses grow 
 Red as sunset, white as snow, 
 And the bees are gathering gold 
 Ere the winter hours come cold. 
 Flowers are colouring the wild- wood, 
 Art thou weary of thy childhood? 
 Break not its enchanted-reign, 
 Suchi life never knows again." L. E. L. 
 
THE PICTURE OF T. C. IN A PROSPECT OF 
 FLOWERS. 
 
 BY ANDREW MARVELL. 
 
 See with what sweet simplicity 
 The nymph begins her golden days ! 
 
 In the green grass she loves to lie, 
 And there, with her fair aspect, tames 
 The wilder flowers, and gives them names : 
 
 But only with the roses pJays, 
 
 And them does tell 
 
 What colour best becomes them, and what smell. 
 * * . * * * 
 
 Meantime whilst every verdant thing 
 Itself does at thy beauty charm 
 
 Reform the errors of.the spring ; 
 Make that the tulips may have share 
 Of sweetness, seeing they are fair ; 
 
 And roses of their thorns disarm : 
 But most procure 
 
 That violets may a longer age endure. 
 108 
 
A PROSPECT OP FLOWERS. 109 
 
 But, O young beauty of the woods, 
 Whom Nature courts with fruits and flowers, 
 
 Gather the flowers but spare the buds ; 
 Lest Flora, angry at that crime, 
 To kill the infants in their prime. 
 
 Should quickly make the example yours, 
 
 And e'er we see 
 Nip, in the blossom, all our hopes in thee. 
 
 THE HYACINTH. 
 
 BY CASIMIR. 
 
 CHILD of the Spring, thou charming flower, 
 
 No longer in confinement lie, 
 Arise to light, thy form discover, 
 
 Rival Vhe azure of the sky. 
 The rains are gone, the storms are o'er, 
 
 Winter retires to make thee way ; 
 Come, then, thou sweetly blooming flower, 
 
 Come, lovely stranger, come away. 
 The sun is dressed in beaming smiles, 
 
 To give thy beauties to the day : 
 Young zephyrs wait with gentlest gales, 
 
 To fan thy bosom as they play. 
 10 
 
A BIRTH-DAF BALLAD. 
 
 BY MISS JEWSBURY. 
 
 Thou art plucking spring roses, Genie, 
 
 And a little red rose art thou, 
 Thou hast unfolded to-day, Genie, 
 
 Another bright leaf, I trow ; 
 But the roses will live and die, Genie 
 
 Many and many a time, 
 Ere thou hast unfolded quite, Genie 
 
 Grown into maiden prime. 
 
 Thou art looking now at the birds. Genie, 
 But, oh ! do not wish their wing ! 
 
 That would only tempt the fowler, Genie, 
 Stay thou on earth and sing ; 
 
 Stay in the nursing nest, Genie, 
 Be not soon thence beguiled, 
 
 Thou wilt ne'er find a second, Genie, 
 
 Never be twice a child. 
 110 
 
A BIRTH-DAT BALLAD. Ill 
 
 Thou art building towers of pebbles, Genie, 
 
 Pile them up brave and high, 
 And leave them to follow a bee, Genie, 
 
 As he wandereth singing by ; 
 But if thy towers fail down, Genie, 
 
 And if the brown bee is lost, 
 Never weep, for thou must learn, Genie, 
 
 How soon life's schemes are crost. 
 
 Thy hand is in a bright boy's, Genie, 
 
 And he calls thee his sweet wee wife, 
 But let not thy little heart think, Genie, 
 
 Childhood the prophet of life ; 
 It may be life's minstrel, Genie, 
 
 And sing sweet songs and clear, 
 But minstrel and prophet now, Genie, 
 
 Are not united here. 
 
 What will thy future fate be, Genie, 
 
 Alas ! shall I live to see ! 
 For thou art scarcely a sapJing, Genie, 
 
 And T am a moss-grown tree ! 
 
112 A BIRTH-DAY BALLAD. 
 
 I am shedding life's leaves fast, Genie, 
 Thou art in blossom sweet ; 
 
 But think of the grave betimes, Genie, 
 Where young an (fold oft meet. 
 
 THE FURZE, 
 
 ; MiD scatter'd foliage, pale and sere, 
 Thy kind flowret cheers the gloom; 
 
 And offers to the waning year 
 The tribute of its golden bloom. 
 
 Beneath November's clouded sky, 
 In chill December's stormy hours, 
 
 Thy blossom meets the traveller's eye, 
 Gay as the buds of summer bowers. 
 
 Flower of the dark and wintry day ! 
 
 Emblem of friendship ! thee I hail ! 
 Blooming when others fade away, 
 
 And brightest when their hues grow pale. 
 
FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 " Bring, FLORA, bring thy treasures here, 
 The pride of all the blooming year, 
 And let me thence a garland frame." SHENSTONB. 
 
 " THE worship of FLORA," says MR. PHIL- 
 LIPS, " among the heathen nations, may be 
 traced up to very early days. She was the 
 ohject of religious veneration among the Pho- 
 cians and the Sabines, long before the foundation 
 of Rome ; and the early Greeks worshipped her 
 under the name of Chloris. The Romans in- 
 stituted a festival in honor of flora as early as 
 the time of Romulus, as a kind of rejoicing at 
 the appearance of the blossoms, which they 
 welcomed as the harbingers of fruits. The 
 festival games of Floralia, were not however, 
 regularly instituted until five hundred and six^ 
 teen years after the foundation of Rome, when 
 on consulting the celebrated books of the Sybil, 
 10* 113 
 
114 F LOB At CEREMONIES. 
 
 it was ordained that the feast should be annually 
 kept on the 28th day of April, that is four days 
 before the calends of May." Bounteous 
 May! 
 
 " Woods and groves are of thy dressing, 
 Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing/' 
 
 As Milton sings, but we shall have much to 
 say of our modern " Feast of Flowers," which, 
 doubtless, had its origin in that above spoken 
 of, and which was introduced by the Roman 
 conquerors into Britain. 
 
 " ! fairest of the fabled forms ! that stream, 
 Dressed by wild Fancy, through the poet's dream, 
 Still may thy attributes of leaves and flowers, 
 Thy gardens rich, and shrub-o'ershadowed bowers, 
 And yellow meads, with spring's first honors bright, 
 The child's gay heart and frolic step invite j 
 And while the careless wanderer explores 
 The umbrageous forest or the rugged shores, 
 Climbs the green down or roams the broom-clad waste, 
 May Truth and Nature form his future taste ! 
 Goddess ! on youth's blest hours thy gifts bestow ; 
 Bind the fair wreath on virgin Beauty's brow, 
 And still may Fancy's brightest flowers be wove 
 Round the gold chains of hymeneal love." 
 
 CHARLOTTE SMITH. 
 
FLORAL CEREMONIES. 115 
 
 It is thus that an English poetess apostrophizes 
 the Goddess Flora, who, according to classical 
 authority, was " married to Zephyrus, and re- 
 ceived from him the. privilege of presiding over 
 flowers and enjoying perpetual youth." She 
 was represented by Ovid and others as crowned 
 with flowers, and holding in her hand the horn 
 of plenty ; perhaps we can find her portrait 
 among our collection of poetic heauties. Ah ! 
 here it is ! 
 
 ( The vision comes ! while slowly melt away 
 Night's hovering shades before the eastern ray, 
 Ere yet declines the morning's humid star, 
 Fair Fancy brings her ; in her leafy car 
 Flora descends to dress the expecting earth, 
 Awake the germs, and call the buds to birth ; 
 Bids each hybernacle its cell unfold, 
 And open silken leaves and eyes of gold. 
 Of forest foliage, of the firmest shade, 
 Enwove by magic hands, the car was made ; 
 Oak and the maple plane without entwined, 
 And beech and ash the verdant concave lined 
 The saxifrage, that snowy flowers emboss, 
 Supplied the seat ; and of the mural moss 
 The velvet footstool rose, where lightly rest 
 Her slender feet in cyprepedium dressed 
 
116 FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 The tufted rush that bears a silken crown, 
 
 The floating feathers of the thistle's down, 
 
 In tender hues of rainbow lustre dyed, 
 
 The airy textuft of her robe supplied; 
 
 And wild convolvuli, yet half unblown, 
 
 Formed, with their wreathing buds, her simple zone j 
 
 Some wandering tresses of her radiant hair 
 
 Luxuriant floated on the enamored air; 
 
 The rest were by the scandix points confined, 
 
 And graced, a shining knot, her head behind 
 
 While, as a sceptre of supreme command, 
 
 She waved the enthoxanthum in her hand." 
 
 CHARLOTTE SMITH, 
 
 We wish that our space permitted us to quote 
 the description of the attendants of the beautiful 
 Goddess of Flowers from the same poem, and 
 the exquisite forms of perfumed loveliness 
 which the earth and the waters put forth to 
 welcome her approach, but the poet of Lusitania 
 is waiting to tell us how, 
 
 <( Zephyr and Flora emulous conspire 
 
 To breathe their graces o'er the field's attire ; 
 The one gives healthful freshness, one tho hue 
 Fairer than e'er creative pencil drew. 
 Pale as the lovesick hopeless maid they dye 
 The modest violet ; from the curious eye 
 The modest violet turns her gentle head, 
 And by the thorn weeps o'er her lowly bed j 
 
FLORAL CEREMONIES. 117 
 
 Bending beneath the tears of pearly dawn, 
 The snow-white lily glitters o'er the lawn ; 
 Lo ! from the hough reclines the damask rose, 
 And o'er the lily's milk-white bosom glows ; 
 Fresh in the dew, far o'er the painted dales, 
 Each fragrant herb her sweetest scent exhales." 
 
 CAMOENS. 
 
 We must not now pause to describe how 
 
 " POMONA, fired with rival envy, views 
 
 The glaring pride of FLORA'S darling hues," 
 
 And endeavors to outvie their beauty and fra- 
 grance with her own luscious productions, but 
 turn to the author of the Task." Listen to 
 him ! Oh, lady readers ! 
 
 " The spleen is seldom felt where FLORA reigns, 
 The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown, 
 And sullen .sadness that o'ershade, distort, 
 And mar the face of beauty, when no cause 
 For such immeasurable woe appears : 
 These FLORA banishes, and gives the fair 
 Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own." 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 From the Roman Antiquities we learn, that 
 " Among the Latins, a bride on her wedding- 
 
118 FLORAL CEREMONIES 
 
 day was dressed in a long white robe with a 
 purple fringe ; her face was covered with a red 
 veil, and her head was crowned with flowers. 
 On arriving at the house of her husband, she 
 found woolen fillets round the door-posts, which 
 were adorned with flowers, and anointed with 
 the fat of wolves to avert enchantment." 
 
 " I oft have seen upon a bridal day, 
 
 Full many maids clad in their best array, 
 In honor of the bride, come with their flaskets 
 Killed full of flowers ; others in wicker baskets 
 Bring from the marish rushes to o'erspread 
 The ground, whereon to church the lovers tread : 
 Whilst that the quaintest youth of all the train 
 Ushers the way with many a piping strain." 
 
 WILLIAM BROWNE. 
 
 Says our old pastoral poet, in allusion to this 
 custom, as still followed in comparatively 
 modern times, though to us the period of which 
 he writes may be spoken of as ft long, long 
 ago." In a similar strain sings Drayton, 
 whose picturesque description of the Marriage 
 of the Thames and Isis will be found farther 
 on. Another of the Company of Singers of 
 
FLOEAL CEREMONIES. 119 
 
 the Elizabethan era, makes this playful allusion 
 in his Epithalamium : 
 
 " Now busie maydens, strew sweet flowres, 
 Much like our bride in virgin state, 
 Now fresh, then prest, soone dying; 
 The death is sweet, and must be yours, 
 Time goes on crutches till that date, 
 Birds fledged must needes be flying." 
 
 CHRISTOPHER BROOKE. 
 
 Then again, in the play of " the Two Noble 
 Kinsmen," we find a very sweet bridal-song, 
 beginning thus : 
 
 " Koses, their sharp spines being gone, 
 Not royal in their smells alone, 
 
 But in their hue ; 
 Maiden-pinks, of odors faint, 
 Daisies, smell-less, yet most quaint, 
 
 And sweet thyme true. 
 
 " Primrose, first-born child of ver, 
 Merry spring-time's harbinger, 
 
 With her bells dim; 
 Oxlips, in their cradles growing, 
 Marigolds on death-beds blowing, 
 Lark-heels trim. 
 
120 FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 " All dear Nature's children sweet, 
 Lye 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet, 
 
 Blessing their sense ! 
 Not an angel of the air, 
 Bird melodious, or bird fair, 
 Be absent hence." 
 
 FLETCHER. 
 
 Even at the present day, it is quite customary 
 with us to strew the path of the bride and 
 bridegroom with flowers, and to offer them nose- 
 gays as they come from church ; and in vVales, 
 as in some of our rural districts, where the 
 primitive observances have been better pre- 
 served, wreaths and garlands are worn on such 
 occasions, and even suspended in the place of 
 worship itself; and to those who condemn this 
 practice as unchristianlike, we would say in 
 the words of Bishop Heber, "If this be 
 heathenish, Heaven help the wicked ! But I 
 hope you will not suspect that I shall lend 
 any countenance to this kind of ecclesiastical 
 'tyranny (which would forbid such rites and 
 observances), or consent to men's consciences 
 being burdened with restrictions foreign to the 
 cheerful spirit of the Gospel." This was 
 
FLORAL CEREMONIES. 121 
 
 written in reference to the denouncement of a 
 certain crown of flowers used in marriages, as 
 *- f a device of Satan," and a desire expressed by 
 an over-jealous professor of Christianity,, to ex- 
 communicate some young persons for wearing 
 masks, and acting in some private rustic 
 theatricals. 
 
 As the Greeks and Romans were lavish of 
 flowers at their weddings, so do the modern 
 Italians delight to use them on such occasions. 
 Here is a picture of the preparation for a wed- 
 ding at Florence, drawn by a poetic pencil : 
 
 " 1 stopped beneath the walls 
 
 Of San Mark's old cathedral halls. 
 
 I entered, and beneath the roof, 
 
 Ten thousand wax-lights burnt on high, 
 
 And incense from the censors fumed 
 
 As for some great solemnity. 
 
 The white-robed choristers were singing j 
 
 Their cheerful peals the bells were ringing ; 
 
 Their deep-voiced music floated round, 
 
 As the far arches sent forth sound 
 
 The stately organ : and fair bands 
 
 Of younger girls, strewed with lavish hands 
 
 Violets o'er the mosaic floor : 
 
 And sang while scattering the sweet store." 
 
 11 L. B. L, 
 
122 FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 Let us now take our readers to a northern 
 clime, where the mighty heart of Nature yat 
 beats warmly beneath her rugged exterior, and 
 the bright flowers open their perfumed chalices 
 in the green valleys, heedless of the snow- 
 covered mountains which frown upon them on 
 every side: to Sweden, where "from the 
 bank of the river nearest Semb, a little fleet of 
 gaily decorated boats is pushing off. In the 
 principal boat sits the lady of Semb, her eyes 
 turned with quiet enjoyment now on the beau- 
 tiful scenes of Nature, now on the still more 
 beautiful objects that are nearer to her two 
 happy human beings. Beside her, more like a 
 little angel than a child, sits the little Hulda ; a 
 garland of gay flowers twined among her golden 
 locks. But the looks of all were turned upon 
 the bride and bridegroom ; and they were, 
 indeed, beautiful to look upon, so inwardly 
 happy did they seem. Other boats contained 
 the wedding guests. The men who rowed had 
 all garlands on their yellow straw hats, and 
 thus to the sounds of gay music they passed on 
 to the chapel. This was a simple building, 
 
FLORAL CEREMONIES. 123 
 
 with no other ornament than a beautiful altar 
 picture, and the flowers and branches of trees, 
 with which the walls and floor were decorated 
 in honor of the occasion." Yes ! 
 
 tl "Tis a morn for a bridal, the merry bride bell 
 
 Tolls out through the woodland that skirts the chapel. 
 
 Do you not hear it ringing ? Do you not see 
 the gay procession pass onward ? and are you 
 not aware of a delicious perfume emanating 
 from the flowers which bestrew the way, and 
 garlands of the merry company : 
 
 " But other lands and other floral rites, 
 The thought poetic, and the pen invites." 
 
 In Eastern nations flowers and perfumes have 
 been considered one of the indispensable enjoy- 
 ments of the higher classes of society, from the 
 remotest antiquity. From those nations the 
 Romans appear to have borrowed this delicate 
 refinement, and to have carried it to the utmost 
 excess in their costly entertainments. They 
 soon began to consider flowers as forming a very 
 essential article in their festal preparations ; and 
 
124 FLOEAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 it is the opinion of Baccius, that, at their 
 desserts, the number of their flowers far ex- 
 ceeded that of their fruits. The odour of 
 tiowers was thought to arouse the fainting ap- 
 petite, and it certainly must have added an 
 ethereal enjoyment to the grosser pleasures of 
 their banqueting boards. 
 
 Flowers are not jonly used as a stimulus to 
 the palate, or that two senses might be gratified 
 at one time, but it was thought that certain 
 plants and flowers facilitated the functions of 
 the brain, and assisted materially to neutralize 
 the inebriating qualities of wine. Even the 
 warriors did not hesitate to crown themselves 
 with flowers during their principal repast. 
 These observations are equally applicable to 
 the Greeks, as to the Romans. 
 
 Horace, it seems, could not sit down to his 1 
 bachelor's gkss of wine without his garland. 
 This lively little ode occurs at the conclusion of 
 his first book : 
 
 " I tell thee, boy, that I detest 
 The grandeur of a Persian feast, 
 Not for me the Linden's rind 
 Shall the flowery chaplet bind. 
 
FLORAL CEREMONIES. 125 
 
 Then search not where the curious rose 
 
 Beyond his season loitering growa ; 
 
 But beneath the mantling vine, 
 
 While I quaff the flowing wine, 
 
 The myrtle's wreath shall crown our brows, 
 
 While you shall wait and I carouse." 
 
 TRANSLATED BY FRANCIS. 
 
 *< The allusion to Persia in this ode," says 
 Phillips, " confirms our idea, that the taste for 
 flowers came to Rome from the East ; garlands 
 were suspended at the gates, or in the temples, 
 where feasts or solemn rejoicings were held, 
 and at all places where public joy and gaiety 
 were desired ;" thus, in the play of " All for 
 Love/' Serapim says 
 
 " Set before your doors 
 The images of all your sleeping fathers, 
 With laurels crowned; with laurels wreathe your posts, 
 And strew with flowers the pavement ; let the priest 
 . Do present sacrifice ; pour out the wine, 
 Arrd call the gods to join with you in gladness." 
 
 DRYDEN. 
 
 And again, in " the Distrest Mother/' we find 
 an allusion to the floral decorations which it was 
 customary to place in the hands of victims in 
 11* 
 
126 FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 the ancient sacrifices, at which the priests also 
 appeared crowned with flowers 
 
 " Thus the gay victim with fresh garlands crowned, 
 Pleased with the sacred pipe's enlivening sound, 
 Through gazing crowds in .solemn state proceeds, 
 And dressed in fatal pomp, magnificently bleeds." 
 
 PHILLIPS- 
 
 " In the annual festivals of the Terminalia, the 
 peasants were all crowned with garlands of 
 flowers," says Cicero, and from " Irving's An- 
 tiquities," we learn that a sacrifices among the 
 Romans were of different kinds ; the place 
 erected for offerings was called ara or altare, 
 an altar ; it was erected with leaves and grass, 
 adorned -with flowers, and bound with woolen 
 fillets." And this author further tells us, that 
 in the triumphal processions of Rome the 
 streets were strewed with flowers, and the 
 altars smoked with incense." Let us now take 
 a picture of one of these Roman triumphs 
 speaking of the Conqueror, the poet says 
 
 He comes, and with a> port so proud, 
 As if ho nad subdued the spacious world 
 And all Sinope's streets were filled with such 
 
FLORAL CEREMONIES. 127 
 
 A glut of people, you would think some god 
 Had conquered in their cause, and them thus ranked, 
 That he might make his entrance on their heads ! 
 While from the scaffolds, windows, tops of houses, 
 Are cast such gaudy showers of garlands down, 
 That e'en the crowd appear like conquerors, 
 And the whole city seems like one vast meadow 
 Set all with flowers, as a clear heaven with stars." 
 
 NATHANIEL LEE. 
 
 Here is another by a more modern hand : 
 
 " Throughout the city joyful shouts resound, 
 The gates are garlanded, the columns bound 
 With victor laurels, while from lovely hands 
 Sweet flowers are showered upon the martial bands 
 As in glad pomp the proud processions march 
 Through many a fair arcade and trophied arch." 
 
 AGNES STRICKLAND. 
 
 And yet one more ; it is by T. B. Macauley ; 
 we are still at the Seven-hilled city " in the 
 time of her pristine vigour, ere she had become 
 luxurious and effeminate ; hark at the lo 
 Triumphs which swells upon the gale ! Hark 
 to the shouts of the multitude, and the pealing 
 of the silver-throated trumpets ! It is the feast 
 of the twin brothers, Castor and Pollux, who 
 won for Rom the battle of the Lake Regillus : 
 
128 FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 " Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note ! 
 
 Ho, lictors clear the way ! 
 The knights will ride, in all their pride, 
 
 Along the streets to-day. 
 To-day the doors and windows 
 
 Are hung with garlands all 
 From Castor, in the Forum, 
 
 To Mars, without the wall. 
 Each knight is robed in purple, 
 
 With olive each is crowned; 
 A gallant war-horse under each 
 
 Paws haughtily the ground. 
 
 On ride they to the Forum, 
 While laurel-boughs and flowers, 
 
 From house-tops and from windows, 
 Fall on their crests in showers. 
 
 Unto the Great Twin Brethren, 
 
 Lo ! all the people throng, 
 With chaplets and with offerings, 
 
 With music and with song. 
 While flows the Yellow River, 
 
 While stands the Sacred Hill, 
 The proud Ides of Quintilis 
 
 Shall have such honor still." 
 
 LAYS OP ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 On the subject of chaplets and garlands so 
 
FLORAL CEREMONIES. 129 
 
 much has been said and written, that we might 
 fill a volume with mere quotations ; by the 
 ancients beauty and divinity were alike crowned 
 with them the objects of their earthly love, 
 and of their unearthly adoration ; they have 
 equally graced the altar and the domestic 
 hearth ; the temple, the palace, and the cottage ; 
 and even down to the 'present day, wherever 
 shrines and images are set up as visible 'mani- 
 festations of things holy and invisible, there do 
 wreaths and garlands of flowers continue to be 
 offered and suspended ; and among those who, 
 like ourselves, reject as sinful, or, at least quite 
 unnecessary, all created forms and vain repre- 
 sentations of the Deity, they are considered as 
 the fittest ornaments for female loveliness and 
 childish innocence ; and the most beautiful 
 objects wherewith we can regale the senses in 
 seasons of festivity and rejoicing. 
 
 As we look upon these pictures we are 
 transported in fancy to Arcadian fields and 
 groves ; the green valley and the sparkling 
 rivulet are before us ; the sound of the shep- 
 herd's pipe, the soft bleating of the sheep, and 
 

 130 FLORAL CEREMONIES 
 
 the drowsy hum of the wild -bees meets our ears, 
 while the perfume of the thyme and other odor- 
 iferous plants and flowers steal over the senses 
 with a soothing influence, like slumber ; we 
 dream, yet we are awake ; we behold realities 
 as though they were but phantoms creatures 
 of imagination. All is shadowy, indistinct, yet 
 full of beauty and intelligence. Lo, you now, 
 you happy-looking group of men and women, 
 laden with bright-hued blossoms, and verdant 
 boughs, piping and singing so merrily as they 
 cross the plain. Let us question him who sits 
 watching his sheep by the stream, that glides 
 so glassly along the foot of the green hill : 
 
 <f From whence come all these shepherd swains 
 And lovely nymphs attired in green ?" 
 
 Hark, he answers, 
 
 4< From gathering garlands on the plains 
 To crown our fair, the shepherds' queen.'* 
 
 Nearer they come, yet nearer, and now the 
 words of their song can be distinguished : 
 
 " Bring hither the pinke and purple columbine, 
 With gillyflowers 
 
FLORAL CEREMONIES. 131 
 
 Bring sweet carnations, and sops in wine, 
 Worn of paramours. 
 
 Strew me the ground with daff-a-down-dillies, 
 And cowslips, and kingcups, and loved lilies. 
 
 The pretty paunce, 
 
 And the chevisaunce, 
 Shall match with the flower-de-luce." 
 
 M. DRAYTON. 
 
 Let us follow the singers through yon grove of 
 myrtles into the open space beyond," where 
 upon a grassy hillock, a throne is erected, of 
 turf, overarched with boughs reft from the 
 neighboring trees, and literally covered with 
 wreaths and clusters of the fairest flowers ; and 
 lo ! the queen ! 
 
 " See where she sits upon the grassie greene, 
 
 A seemly sight ! 
 Yclad in scarlet, like a mayden queene, 
 
 And ermines white. 
 Upon her head a crimson coronet, 
 With daffodils and damask roses set: 
 
 Bay-leaves betweene, 
 
 And primroses greene 
 Embellish the sweete violet." SPENCER, 
 
132 FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 HYMN OF THE TURKISH CHILDREN. 
 
 BY MISS PABDOE. 
 
 fr,. 
 
 A recent traveller in Turkey describes an interesting 
 ceremony witnessed by her, performed at a time of exces- 
 sive drought. " At dusk, the village children, walking 
 two and two, and each carrying a bunch of wild flowers, 
 drew near the cistern in their turn, and sang to one of 
 the thrilling melodies of the country, a hymn of supplica- 
 tion." 
 
 Allah ! Father ! hear us ; 
 
 Our souls are faint and weak : 
 A cloud is on our mother's brow, 
 
 A tear upon her cheek : 
 We fain would chase that cloud away, 
 
 And stay that sad'ning tear $ 
 For this it is to-night we pray 
 
 Allah! Father Ihear ! 
 
FLORAL CEREMONIES. 133 
 
 We seek the cooling fountain, 
 
 Alas ! we seek in vain ; 
 The cloud that crowns the- mountain 
 
 Melts not away in rain. 
 The stream is shrunk, which through our plain 
 
 Once glided bright and clear ; 
 Oh ! ope the secret springs again 
 
 Allah! Father ! hear ! 
 
 We bring thee flowers, sweet flowers, 
 
 All withered in their prime ; 
 No moisture glistens on their leaves, 
 
 They sickened ere their time. 
 And we, like them, shall pass away, 
 
 Ere wintry days are near ; 
 Shouldst thou not hearken as we pray 
 
 Allah! Father ! hear I 
 
 12 
 
134 FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 HINDOO GIRLS FLOATING THEIR 
 TRIBUTARY OFFERINGS DOWN THE GANGES. 
 
 BY MISS LANDON. 
 
 As they passed along a sequestered river after sunset, 
 they saw a young Hindoo girl upon the bank, whose em- 
 ployment seemed to them so strange, that they stopped 
 their palanquins to observe her. She had lighted a small 
 lamp, filled with oil of cocoa, and placing it on an earthen 
 dish, adorned with a wreath of flowers, had committed it, 
 with a trembling hand, to the stream, and was now 
 anxiously watching its progress down the current, heed- 
 less of the gay cavalcade which had drawn up beside her. 
 LALLA ROOKH was all curiosity; when one of her at- 
 tendants, who had lived upon the banks of the Ganges, 
 (where this ceremony is so frequent, that often in the 
 dusk of the evening, the river is seen glittering all over 
 with lights, like the Oton-tala, or sea of stars,) informed 
 the princess, that it was the usual way in which the 
 friends of those who had gone on dangerous voyages 
 offered up vows for their safe return. If the lamp sunk 
 immediately, the omen was disastrous j but if it went 
 shining down the stream, and continued to burn till en- 
 tirely out of sight, the return of the beloved object was 
 considered as certain. LALLA ROOKH. 
 
FLORAL CEREMONIES. 135 
 
 They bend above the moonlit stream 
 With gathered fruit and flowers 
 
 The last on which the sun has left 
 The earlier rosy hours. 
 
 One sends a vow to him afar 
 
 Oh ! never can the heart 
 Know half the love it cherishes 
 
 Until it comes to part. 
 
 A thousand things are then recalled, 
 Though scarcely marked at first ; 
 
 But lingering thoughts in after hours 
 Betray how they were nurs'd. 
 
 Another sends a little boat 
 Upon its happier way ; 
 She knows to-morrow will restore 
 The eyes she loved to-day. 
 
 They bend with all the eager hopes, 
 
 The confidence of youth, 
 Which makes the future it believes, 
 
 And trusts itself with truth. 
 
136 FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 And never Grecian chisel formed 
 Shapes of more perfect grace, 
 
 Than by the moonlit Ganges bend 
 Each o'er her mirrored face. 
 
 Ah ! love takes many shapes ; at first 
 
 It comes as flashes fly 
 That bear the lightning on their wings, 
 
 And then in darkness die. 
 
 But after comes a steadier light, 
 
 A long and lasting dream ; 
 Like the full heaven which the sun 
 
 Flings down on life's dark stream. 
 
 One lingers for she dares not trust 
 
 Her lamp upon the wave ; 
 She knows the omen ere it come . 
 
 Her heart is its own grave. 
 
 There is a love that in the soul 
 
 Burns silent and alone, 
 Though all of earthly happiness, 
 
 Has long, too long been flown. 
 
FLORAL CEREMONIES. 187 
 
 But like the lotus, whose soft depths 
 
 Receive the morning sun ; 
 The true fond flower still looks to heaven, 
 
 Though light and day are done. 
 
 And she, amid her gladder friends, 
 
 Seems pensive on the strand ; 
 And keeps her fairy bark unlaunched 
 Beside her trembling hand. 
 
 Why should she send her fairy freight 
 
 To question future pain ? 
 She knows her utter misery 
 
 She loves, and loves in vain 
 
 I pray his pardon he who traced 
 
 The graceful forms I see ; 
 Oh, magic painter to thy skill 
 
 The spirit yields its key. 
 
 The treasures of these distant lands 
 
 Are given to thy will ; 
 But thou hast yet a dearer charm 
 
 The heart obeys thee still. 
 12* 
 
138 FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 After the feast of Whitsuntide, says VON TEITZ, the 
 young Russian maidens seek the banks of the Neva, and 
 ..fling in its waters wreaths of flowers. These are tokens 
 of affection to absent friends. Our own modern Anacreon 
 thus addresses the river in which his suppositions wreaths 
 are cast: 
 
 Flow on, thou shining river, 
 
 But ere thou reach the sea, 
 Seek Ella's bow'r and give her 
 
 The wreaths I fling o'er thee : 
 And tell her thus : If she'll be mine 
 
 The current of our lives shall be, 
 With joys along their course to shine 
 
 Like those sweet flowers on thee. 
 
 But if in wandering thither, 
 
 Thou find she mocks thy pray'r, 
 Then leave those wreaths to wither 
 
 Upon the cold bank there. 
 And tell her thus : When youth is o'er 
 
 Her lone and loveless charms shall be 
 Thrown by upon life's weedy shore, 
 
 Like those sweet flowers from thee 1 
 
FUNERAL FLOWERS. 
 
 "FLOWERS, wherefore do ye bloom? 
 We strew the pathway to the tomb !" 
 J. MONTGOMERY. 
 
 "Here is the mother with her sons and daughters : 
 The barren wife, the long demurring maid, 
 Whose lonely unappropriated sweets 
 Smiled like yon knot of cowslips on the cliff, 
 Not to be come at by the willing hand : 
 The sober widow, and the young green virgin^ 
 Cropped like a rose before 'tis fully blown 
 Or half its worth disclosed. BLAIR'S GRAVE. 
 
 "Pleasant," says the Gaelic bard, "is the 
 joy of grief! it is like the shower of spring, 
 when it softens the branch of the oak, and the 
 young leaf lifts its green head." In the pe- 
 rusal of many, indeed, we believe most, of the 
 poems which follow, the real mourner may, 
 without indulging a morbid spirit of repining, 
 find comfort and consolation ; and for those yel 
 
 unvisited by sorrow the gay and the thought- 
 
 139 
 
140 TUNERAL FLOWERS. 
 
 less it is good to be sometimes reminded of 
 Death, and the Grave ; not to fill them with 
 gloomy thoughts and forebodings, but to lead 
 them to the contemplation of higher and more 
 lasting enjoyments than this life affords. A 
 memento mori is not necessarily sad and for- 
 bidding, nor is the dirge-note always a fearful 
 sound, for to the mind rightly trained and con- 
 stituted, they speak of a blissful hereafter, and 
 a glorified existence, for which this is but a 
 state of preparation. Knowing and feeling this, 
 we may stand in the church-yard without awe 
 or dread, and looking through Death's open 
 portals, into the regions of everlasting happiness 
 beyond, exclaim : 
 
 "The first tabernacle to HOPE we will build, 
 
 And look for the sleepers around us to rise; 
 The second to FAITH, which ensures it fulfilled; 
 
 And the third to the LAMB of the great SACRIFICE, 
 Who bequeathed us them both when He rose to the skies." 
 HERBERT KNOWLES. 
 
 Let us ever remember, with EPHON, that 
 " the flower sheds the same fragrance if it 
 blooms in Eden or on a grave, and the same 
 
YUNEBAL FLOWERS. 14] 
 
 song which awakes the lark at morn may lull 
 the dying at evening to repose ;" and ajso 
 that 
 
 "The sweetest flower in pleasure's path 
 Will bloom on sorrow's grave." JOHN CLARE. 
 
 This life is uncertain, and full of vicissitudes ; 
 its pleasures are short-lived and fleeting. Change 
 is the element in which we move, breathe, and 
 have our being, and no one can tell how soon 
 the vital spark may be quenched within him 
 how soon sorrow may fall upon him, though he 
 be now full of health, and life, and happiness. 
 Therefore it is well to contemplate the tomb, 
 and to be ever prepared for the life that is to 
 come. The poet asks : 
 
 " Beauteous flowers, why do ye spread 
 Upon the monuments of the dead?" COWLEY. 
 
 And we may answer, that we place them tliere 
 as emblems^ of the frailty of human existence, 
 and of the evanescent nature of its brightest 
 enjoyments ; they also serve to remind us of 
 that better land, whither we hope the souls of 
 the departed are gone. 
 
142 FUNERAL 1LOWERS. 
 
 tt was not in their sports only, that the 
 Grgeks were so lavish of flowers ; they crowned 
 their dead with them, and the mourners wore 
 them, in their funeral ceremonies. That they 
 also planted them on the graves of the departed, 
 or at least, deemed it pleasant and fitting that 
 they should be there, we may learn from this 
 passage of one of their great dramatists. In the 
 Agamemnon," the chorus, lamenting over 
 Alcestis, says : 
 
 "Oh, lightly on thy hallowed grave 
 Lie the green turf, the flow'ret wave." ^ESCHYLDS. 
 
 Indeed, flowers seem to have been to this taste- 
 ful people, a sort of poetic language, whereby 
 they expressed the intensity of feelings to which 
 they found common language inadequate. 
 
 A modern poetess, who has caught, and finely 
 transfused into our language, the spirit of an- 
 tiqueisong, thus makes a Grecian mother lament 
 the loss of her son, supposed to have perished 
 at sea : 
 
 "Where art thou where? Had I but lingering prest 
 On thy cold lips the last, long kiss, but smoothed 
 The parted ringlets of thy shining hair 
 
FUNERAL FLOWERS. 
 
 With love's fond touch, my heart's cry had been stilled 
 Into a voiceless grief; I would have strewed 
 With all the pale flowers of the vernal woods, 
 White violets, and the mournful hyacinth, 
 And frail anemone, thy marble brow, 
 In slumber beautiful ! I would have heaped 
 Sweet boughs and precious odours on thy pyre, 
 And with thine own shorn tresses hung thine urn, 
 And many a garland of the pallid rose 
 But thou liest far away ! No funeral chaunt, 
 Save the wild mourning of the wave, is thine ; 
 No pyre, save haply some long buried wreck; 
 Thou that wert fairest thou that wert most loved !" 
 
 MRS. HEMANS. 
 
 Reference is here made to the funeral pyre, 
 which it seems the Greeks were wont to deck 
 and garland with flowers, and render odorous 
 with spices and other fragrant things. It was 
 not unusual for a statue, called the Funeral 
 Genius, to be placed in the groves, wherein 
 were deposited the ashes of the departed. To 
 one of these our authoress has written an 
 address, from which we quote : 
 
 "Flowers are upon thy brow, for so the dead 
 
 Were crowned of old, with pale spring flow ers like these; 
 Sleep on, thine eye hath sunk, yet softly shed, 
 As from the wing of some faint southern breeze; 
 
144 FUNERAL FLOWERS. 
 
 And the pine boughs o'ershadow thee with gloom 
 Which of the grove seems breathing not the tomb. 
 
 HEMANS. 
 
 Let us now turn to the Romans, who imitated, 
 and even went beyond the people last alluded 
 to, in most of their luxuries and refinements ; 
 we have already had occasion to show how 
 lavish these were of flowers in their festivals 
 and religious rites ; we will now speak of those 
 which relate to the memory and sepulture of 
 the dead. OWEN has thus translated an apos- 
 trophe from the Latin : 
 
 "May gentlest earth our fathers* shades enclose, 
 Light be their turf, and peaceful their repose ; 
 Forth, from their urns, the breathing crocus fling, 
 The balmy sweets of an eternal spring ! 
 Wno willed that to the tutor should be showed 
 The filial reverence to a parent owed/' 
 
 And DRYDEN has given us, in the following 
 words, a noble version of that portion of An- 
 chises' speech to his son, in which he alludes 
 to bestrewing the funeral pile of Marcellus 
 with flowers : 
 
 " Full canisters of fragrant lilies bring, 
 Mixed with the purple roses of the spring; 
 
FUNERAL FLOWERS. 145 
 
 Let me with fun'ral flowers his body strow; 
 This gift which parents to their children owe, 
 This unavailing gift, at least, I may bestow !" 
 
 VIRGIL. 
 
 From these two extracts we may gather, that it 
 was considered a duty incumbent on children, 
 to deck with flowers the bodies and places of 
 sepulture of their parents, and also on them to 
 pay similar honours to those of their offspring. 
 In the same poem as that from which the last 
 quotation was taken, we have these lines : 
 
 " The fatal pile they rear 
 Within the secret court, exposed in air. 
 The cloven holms and pines are heaped on high ; 
 And garlands in the hollow spaces lie. 
 Sad cypress, vervain, yew, compose the wreath, 
 And every baleful flower denoting death." VIRGIL. 
 
 This was to be the place of destruction, by fire, 
 of the self-immolated queen Dido, and we are 
 here strongly reminded of the Hindoo custom 
 of burning widows on the funeral pyre of their 
 husbands. The poet says : 
 
 " The widowed Indian, when her lord expires, 
 Mounts the dread pile, and braves the fun'ral fires." 
 
 CAMPBELL, * 
 to 
 
146 FUNERAL FLOWERS. 
 
 And DIODORUS tells how she goes " crowned 
 by the women of her house," meaning, no 
 doubt, crowned with flowers. 
 
 When a woman in Tripoli dies, a large bou- 
 quet of fresh flowers, if they can be procured, 
 if not, of artificial, is fastened at the head of her 
 coffin. Upon the death of a Moorish lady ot 
 quality, every place is filled with fresh flowers 
 and burning perfumes: at the head of the corpse 
 is placed a large bouquet, partly artificial, and 
 partly natural, and richly ornamented with silver. 
 TULLY, who describes these customs, mentions 
 a lady of high rank, who regularly visited the 
 tomb of her daughter, who had been three 
 years dead ; she always kept it in repair, and 
 with the exception of the great mosque, it was 
 one of the grandest buildings in Tripoli. From 
 the time of the young lady's death, the tomb 
 had always been supplied with the most expen- 
 sive flowers, placed in beautiful vases ; and, in 
 addition to these, a great quantity of fresh 
 Arabian jessamine blossoms, threaded on thin 
 slips of the palm leaf, were hung in festoons 
 s|and tassels about this revered sepulchre. The 
 
FUNERAL FLOWERS. 147 
 
 mausoleum of the royal family, which is called 
 Turbor, is of the purest white marble, and is 
 filled with an immense quantity of fresh flowers ; 
 most of the tombs being dressed with festoons 
 of the Arabian jessamine, and large branches 
 of variegated flowers, consisting of orange, 
 myrtle, red and white roses, etc. They afford 
 a perfume which those who are not habituated 
 to such choice flowers can scarcely conceive. 
 We may imagine the bereaved mother, above 
 spoken of, addressing the shade of the departed 
 in words like those by PAUL THE SILENTIARY: 
 
 " Sweet maid, thy parents fondly thought 
 To show thy bride-bed, not thy bier; 
 But thou hast left a being, fraught 
 
 With wiles, and toils, and anxious fear. 
 For me remains a journey drear, 
 For thee a blessed eternal prime, 
 
 Untiring, in thy short career, 
 Youth's blossom with the fruit of time." 
 
 TRANSLATED BY BRAND. 
 
 Like those of the modern Turks, the magnifi- 
 cent mausoleums of the Persian and Mogul 
 emperors and kings, and those which they 
 erected to perpetuate the memory of some of 
 
148 FUNERAL FLOWERS. 
 
 their favourite wives, were surrounded with 
 beautiful gardens, and the representation of 
 flowers in gems, and costly marbles, enriched 
 the gorgeous interiors of these " sculptured 
 tombs of Hindoostan." 
 
 In CHATEAUBRIAND'S delightful romance, 
 called after its heroine, ATALA, with which 
 most of our readers must be acquainted, we 
 have these allusions to the funeral customs of 
 some of the tribes of North America : " We 
 passed near the tomb of a child, which served 
 as a boundary to two nations. It was placed 
 near the public road, according to custom, that 
 virgins, in going to the fountain, might breathe, 
 and receive into their bosoms the soul of the 
 little innocent, and restore it to their country. 
 
 " We then saw newly married brides, who, 
 desiring the joys of maternity, sought among 
 the flowers the soul of the infant, which they 
 imagined to be hovering around. At last came 
 the mother, and placing a bunch of maize and 
 lilies upon the grave, she seated herself upon 
 the turf, and thus addressed her departed 
 child : 
 
FUNERAL FLOWERS. 149 
 
 <t c Why should I deplore thy early grave, 
 oh ! rny first-born ? When the newly fledged 
 bird first seeks his food, he finds many bitter 
 grains. Thou never felt the pangs of sorrow, 
 and thy heart was never polluted by the 
 poisonous breath of men. The rose that is 
 nipped in the bud, dies enclosed with all its 
 perfumes, like thee, my son, with all thy 
 innocence. Happy are those who die in 
 infancy ; they have never known the joys ^ 
 sorrows of a mother.' ' 
 
 How touchingly expressed is this chastened 
 sorrow of the Indian matron : we cannot refrain 
 from giving, as a companion to her apostrophe, 
 the following beautiful epitaph on a child: 
 
 " Here she lies, a pretty bud, 
 Lately made of flesh and blood ; 
 Who so soon fell fast asleep 
 As her little eyes did peep. 
 Give her streivinys, but not stir 
 The earth that lightly covers her." 
 
 ROBERT HERRICK. 
 
 In reference to the superstition, regarding the 
 supposed existence of the soul of a departed 
 
150 FUNERAL FLOWERS. 
 
 infant in the flowers, we quote this passage from 
 the work above referred to: "I gathered a 
 rose from a magnolia, and placed it, yet moist 
 with the dew, upon the head of Atala, who still 
 slept. I hoped that, according to my religion, 
 the soul of some new-born infant would descend 
 on the crystal dew of this flower, and that a 
 prosperous dream would convey it to the bosom 
 of my beloved." Stay ! we have another floral 
 epitaph, which, as it relates to a child, we 
 should like to quote in this place ; it is from a 
 country church-yard in Ireland : 
 
 "A little spirit slumbers here, 
 Who to one heart was ever dear. 
 Oh ! he was more than life or light, 
 Its thought by day its dream by night. 
 The chill winds came ; the young flower faded, 
 And died ; the grave its sweetness shaded. 
 Fair boy ! thou shouldst have wept for me, 
 Not I have had to mourn for thee ; 
 Yet not long shall my sorrowing be 
 These roses I have planted round, 
 To deck thy dear, sad, sacred ground, 
 When spring gales next these roses wave, 
 They'll blush upon thy mother's grave." 
 
 Let us now return to ATALA alas ! she died ! 
 
PUNERAL F LOWERS. 151 
 
 and exquisitely pictured is the scene of watching 
 over her, previous to interment : The pious 
 anchorite ceased not to pray during the whole 
 night. I sat in silence on the top of Atala's 
 funeral couch : how often had I supported her 
 sleeping head upon my knees, and how often 
 had I bent over her beauteous form, listening 
 to her, and inhaling her perfumed breath ; but 
 now no soft murmur issued from her motionless 
 bosom, and it was in vain that I waited for my 
 beloved to awake. The moon supplied her 
 pale light to the funeral eve ; she rose at mid- 
 night as a fair virgin that weeps over the bier 
 of a departed friend ; it covered the whole 
 scene with a deep melancholy, displaying the 
 aged oaks and flowing rivers. From time to 
 time the cenobite plunged a bunch of flowers 
 into consecrated water, and bathed the couch of 
 death with the heavenly dew, repeating, in a 
 solemn voice, some verses from an ancient poet 
 called JOB : 
 
 " He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down ; he 
 fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. 
 
 " Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery ? 
 and life unto the hitter of soul ?" 
 
152 FUNEBAL FLOWERS. 
 
 te Atala lay stretched upon a couch of sensitive, 
 plants ; her feet, head, and shoulders, were un- 
 covered, and her hair was adorned with a flower 
 of a magnolia, it was the same flower which I 
 had placed upon the maiden's head." 
 
 "Thus have I seen a rose with rising morn, 
 Unfold its glowing bloom, sweet to the smell, 
 And lovely to the eye, when a keen wind 
 Hath torn its blushing leaves, and laid it low, 
 Stripped of its sweets." MICHAEL BRUCE. 
 
 These lines jnay well apply to the gentle and 
 lovely being who was laid at rest in the depths 
 of the Indian forest ; and in allusion to the 
 burial places of whose countrymen, CHATEAU- 
 BRIAND thus writes : I have seen memorable 
 monuments to Crassus and to Caesar, but I 
 prefer the airy tombs of the Indians, those mau- 
 soleums of flowers and verdure, refreshed by 
 the morning dew ; embalmed and waved by 
 the breeze on the same branch where the black- 
 bird builds his nest, and utters forth his plain- 
 tive melody." 
 
 But let us leave the mighty forests and far 
 sweeping rivers of the West, and come to our 
 
FUNERAL FLOWERS. 153 
 
 own country, first giving a look into the Grecian 
 Archipelago, to see if we can trace any remains 
 of the floral customs of the ancient dwellers in 
 those " rocky islands of the JEgean sea." 
 Hush! tread softly through the " dusky cor- 
 ridor," and look into that dimly-lighted room ; 
 what see we there ? 'Tis the Corsair's bride 
 poor Medora ! stretched lifeless on the bier : 
 
 " In life itself she was so still and fair, 
 That death with gentler aspect withered there ; 
 And the cold flowers her colder hand contained, 
 In that last grasp s-o tenderly were strained, 
 As if she scarcely felt, but feigned a sleep, 
 And made it almost mockery to weep." BYRON. 
 
 In the Levant, then, we are told, by him who 
 drew this picture it is still the custom to strew 
 flowers on the bodies of the dead, and in the 
 hands of young persons to place a nosegay. 
 Can we not find a dirge for this heart-broken 
 lady ? Aye, here it is, very sweet and appro- 
 priate: 
 
 "Weep not, weep not, she is dead, 
 
 Cold and dreamless now she lyeth 
 Where the damp dull clay is spread, 
 
 And the death-worm sigheth. 
 
154 FUNERAL FLOWERS. 
 
 "Lay a white rose on her breast, 
 
 Pied violets dim, and cypress sere, 
 That the scent of flowers may rest 
 In her wintry sepulchre." EPHON 
 
 In France La Belle France! the land of the 
 Troubadour and Minnesinger, they, perhaps 
 more than any other nation of modern times, 
 cherish the memory of the dead, by ornament- 
 ing their places of sepulture with the finest 
 flowers, often renewing the garlands, and re- 
 placing such plants as decay with vigorous and 
 costly ones ; this is especially the case in the 
 South of France, where the custom is of very 
 ancient date, of expressing both love and hatred 
 for the dead ; ihe first by, rearing only the most 
 beautiful and sweet-scented flowers on the 
 grave ; and the latter, by sowing around the 
 seeds of such plants as. were, for some reason 
 or other, regarded as obnoxious. Let us illus- 
 trate our meaning by a picture, contrasting the 
 two graves of the loved and the hated the 
 betrayer and the betrayed : 
 
 "Wild are the tales which of that grave are told: 
 Around it grows each rank and noxious weed; 
 The poisonous toad-stool in that corner thrives j 
 
FUNERAL FLOWERS. 155 
 
 There shrieks the night-bird from the blasted yew, 
 Which doth exclude the gladdening light of Heaven. 
 By all unhallowed things that spot is banned ; 
 The path which erst lay near it is o'ergrown ; 
 No one could pass that fearful grave at night! 
 
 "And Ella lies where yonder blushing rose 
 And jessamine enclasp that simple tomb; 
 That spot the setting sun delights to kiss ; 
 And there the moonbeams shed their softest smile; 
 The daisy and the cowslip shine around; 
 And on each May-day morn, upon that stone 
 Is seen a beauteous wreath of fairest flowers.*' S. T. L 
 
 In Switzerland, also, as well as in Wales, and 
 some other parts of Britain, flowers are planted 
 by the hand of affection on the graves of de- 
 parted relatives. It is a touching and beautiful 
 custom, and in both the above-named countries, 
 even the peasant may often be seen bending 
 orer the hallowed turf, and as he inserts into 
 the sod some new plant or flower, he performs 
 the act, which testifies of his affectionate re- 
 membrance, with a feeling and a delicacy 
 which do honour to his unsophisticated heart. 
 In Glamorganshire, it is yet a custom to strew 
 the bed whereon a corpse rests, with fragrant 
 
150 FUNERAL FLOWERS. 
 
 flowers. So, in the South of England, a chaplet 
 of white roses is borne before the corpse of a 
 maiden by a young girl, nearest in age and re- 
 semblance to the deceased, and afterwards hung 
 up over her accustomed seat at church. They 
 are emblematical, says WASHINGTON IRVING, of 
 purity and the crown of glory, which she has 
 received in heaven : 
 
 "A garland shall be formed 
 
 By art and nature's skill, 
 Of sundry colored flowers 
 
 In token of good- will, 
 The blessed crown of glory, 
 
 And the hopes which us do fill." 
 
 Many and very beautiful are the allusions 
 made to this custom by our old poets and drama- 
 tists ; we shall only have space to quote a few 
 of them from the prince of song and master of 
 the passions : 
 
 QUEEN. " Sweets to the sweet Farewell ! 
 
 (Scattering flowers.) 
 
 I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife; 
 I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, 
 And not t' have strew'd thy grave. HAMLET, ACT V. 
 
FUNERAL FLOWERS. 157 
 
 In this burial scene of poor Ophelia, we find 
 the priest saying : 
 
 *' Here she is allowed her virgin rites, 
 
 Her maiden strewments." 
 
 Some editions have it her virgin crants" that 
 is, garlands. Her brother, Laertes, says : 
 
 -Lay her i* the earth ; 
 
 And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 
 .May violets spring." 
 
 14 
 
158 FUNERAL FLOWERS. 
 
 LINES. 
 
 BT M. A. BROWNE. 
 
 "Do not pluck the flowers, they are sacred to trie dead." 
 
 An inscription, similar to the foregoing, is seen in many 
 parts of ih*. Roman Catholic Burial Ground, Botanic 
 Gardens, Cork. 
 
 UH ! spare the flowers, the fair young flowers, 
 
 The free glad gift the summer brings ; 
 Bright children of the sun and showers, 
 
 Here do they rise, earth's offerings. 
 Rich be the dew upon yon shed 
 
 Green be the bough that o'er you waves, 
 Weariless watchers by the dead, 
 
 Unblenching dwellers 'midst the graves ! 
 
 Oh ! spare the flowers ! their sweet perfume, 
 Upon the wandering zephyr cast, 
 
 A.nd lingering o'er the lowly tomb, 
 Is like the memory of the past 
 
FUNERAL FLOWERS. 159 
 
 They flourish freshly, though beneath 
 Lie the dark dust and creeping worm, 
 
 They speak of Hope, they speak of Faith ; 
 They smile, like rainbows thro' the storm. 
 
 Pluck not the flowers the sacred flowers ! 
 
 Go where the garden's treasures spread, 
 Where strange bright blossoms deck the bowers, 
 
 And spicy trees their odors shed. 
 There pluck, if thou delight' st, indeed, 
 
 To shorten life so brief as theirs, 
 But here the admonition heed 
 
 A blessing on the hand that spares ! 
 
 Pluck not the flowers ! In days gone by 
 
 A beautiful belief was felt, 
 That fairy spirits of the sky 
 
 Amidst the trembling blossoms dwelt. 
 Perhaps the dead have many a guest, 
 
 Holier than any that are ours, 
 Perhaps their guardian angels rest 
 
 Enshrined amidst the gentle flowers. 
 
160 FUNERAL FLOWERS. 
 
 Hast thou no loved one lying low, 
 
 No broken reed of earthly trust ? 
 Hast thou not felt the bitter woe 
 
 With which we render dust to dust? 
 Thou hast ! and in one cherished spot, 
 
 Unseen, unknown to earthly eyes, 
 Within their heart, the unforgot 
 
 Entombed in silent beauty lies. 
 
 Memory and Faith, and Love so deep. 
 
 No earthly storm can reach it more 
 Affection that hath ceased to weep, 
 
 These flourish in thy bosom's core. 
 Spare then the flowers ! With gentle tread 
 
 Draw near, remembering what thou art, 
 For blossoms sacred to the dead, 
 
 Are ever springing in thy heart. 
 
FUNERAL ZF LOWERS. 161 
 
 MRS. HEMANS AND L. E. L. 
 
 "A touching and graceful compliment was once paid to 
 L. E. L. It was a tribute from America, sent from the 
 far-off banks of the Ohio a curious species of the Michigan 
 rose, accompanied by a prayer that she would plant it on 
 the grave of Mrs. Hemans. To no hand could it have 
 been more appropriately transmitted, than to the hand 
 which wrote so reverently and rapturously of that gifted 
 woman." LIFE AND LITERARY REMAINS OF L. E. L. 
 
 The author of the above work, LAMAN BLANCHARD, in 
 the introduction, mentions a very beautiful expression of 
 L. E. L., when writing of a great author, lately dead : 
 " I almost fear to praise such a man ; but comfort myself 
 with thinking that though few can raise the carved marble 
 over a great author's remains, all may throw a flower on 
 his grave." How touchingly beautiful are L. E. L/s 
 Stanzas on the Death of Mrs. Hemans; well may she 
 repeat from this lamented authoress* " Lays of Many 
 Lands," " The rose, the glorious rose, is gone," and 
 continue : 
 
 66 Bring flowers to crown the cup and lute 
 Bring flowers the bride is near ; 
 
 Bring flowers to soothe the captive's cell, 
 Bring flowers to strew the bier ! 
 
162 FUNERAL T LOWERS. 
 
 Bring flowers ! thus said the lovely song ; 
 
 And shall they not be brought 
 To her who linked the offering 
 
 With feeling and with thought ? 
 
 " Bring flowers the perfumed and the pure 
 
 Those with the morning dew, 
 A sigh on every fragrant leaf, 
 
 A tear on every hue. 
 So pure, so sweet, thy life has been, 
 
 So filling earth and air 
 With odors, and with loveliness, 
 
 Till common scenes grow fair." 
 
 THE WEDDING WAKE. 
 
 BY GEORGE BARLEY. 
 
 WE'LL carry her o'er the churchyard green, 
 
 Down by the willow trees ; 
 We'll bury her by herself between 
 
 Two sister cypresses. 
 
 Flowers of the sweetest, saddest hue, 
 
 Shall deck her lowly bed, 
 Rosemary at her feet we'll strew, 
 
 And violets at her head 
 
FUNERAL FLOWERS. 163 
 
 The pale rose, the dim azure-bell, 
 
 And that lamenting flower, 
 With ai ! ai ! its eternal knell, 
 
 Shall over-bloom her bower 
 
 Her cypress bower ; whose shade beneath 
 
 Passionless she shall lie ; .* . 
 To rest so calm, so sweet in death, 
 'Twere no great ill to die ! 
 
 Ye four fair maids, the fairest ye, 
 
 Be ye the flower-strewers ! 
 Ye four bright youths the bearers be, 
 
 Ye were her fondest wooers ! 
 
 To church ! to church ! ungallant youth, 
 
 Carry your willing bride ! 
 So pale he looks ! 'twere well, in sooth, 
 
 He should lie by her side ! 
 
 The bed is laid, the toll is done, 
 
 The ready priest doth stand ; 
 Come, let the flowers be strown, be strovvn. 
 
 Strike up ye bridal band 1 
 
THE DYING BOY TO THE SLOE BLOSSOM, 
 
 BY E. ELLIOTT. 
 
 BEFORE thy leaves thou com'st once more, 
 
 White blossom of the sloe ! 
 Thy leaves will come as heretofore ; 
 But this poor heart, its troubles o'er, 
 Will then lie low. 
 
 A month at least before thy time 
 
 Thou com'st, pale flower, to me ; 
 For well thou know'st the frosty rime 
 Will blast me ere my vernal prime, 
 No more to be. 
 
 Why here in winter ? No storm lours 
 
 O'er nature's silent shroud ! 
 But blithe larks meet the sunny showers, 
 High o'er the doom'd untimely flowers 
 In beauty bow'd. 
 164 
 
THE DYING BOY. 165 
 
 Sweet violets in the budding grove 
 
 Peep where the glad waves run ; 
 The wren below, the thrush above, 
 Of bright to-morrow's joy and love 
 Sing to the sun. 
 
 And where the rose-leaf, ever bold, 
 Hears bees chant hymns to God, 
 The breeze-bowed palm, moss'd o'er with gold, 
 Smiles o'er the well in summer cold, - 
 And daisied sod. 
 
 But thou, pale blossom, thou art come, 
 
 And flowers in winter blow, 
 To tell me that the worm makes room 
 For me, her brother, in the tomb, 
 And thinks me slow. 
 
 For as the rainbow of the dawn 
 
 Foretells an eve of tears, 
 A sunbeam on the sadden'd lawn 
 I smile, and weep to be withdrawn 
 In early years. 
 
166 _ THE DYING BOY. 
 
 Thy leaves will come ! but songful spring 
 
 Will see no leaf of mine : 
 Her bells will ring, her bridemaids sing, 
 When my young leaves are withering 
 Where no suns shine. 
 
 Oh, might I breathe morn's dewy breath 
 When June's sweet Sabbaths chime ! 
 But, thine before my time, oh, death ! 
 I go where no flow'r blossometh, 
 Before my time. 
 
 Even as the blushes of the morn 
 
 Vanish, and long ere noon 
 The dew-drop dieth on the thorn, 
 So fair I bloorn'd ; and was I born 
 To die as soon ? 
 
 To love my mother, and to die . 
 
 To perish in my bloom ! 
 Is this my sad, brief history ! 
 A tear dropp'd from a mother's eye 
 Into the tomb. 
 
THE DYING BOY. 167 
 
 He lived and loved will sorrow say 
 
 By early sorrows tried ; 
 He smiled, he sigh'd, he pass'd away ; 
 His life was but an April day, 
 He loved, and died ! 
 
 My mother smiles, then turns away, 
 
 But turns away to weep ; 
 They whisper round me what they say 
 I need not hear, for in the clay 
 1 soon must sleep. 
 
 O, love is sorrow ! sad it is 
 
 To be both tried and true ; 
 I ever trembled in my bliss : 
 Now there are farewells in a kiss, 
 They sigh adieu. 
 
 But woodbines flaunt when blue bells fade, 
 
 Where Don reflects the skies ; 
 And many a youth in ShireclifFs' shade 
 Will ramble where my boyhood play'd ; 
 Though Alfred dies. 
 
168 THE DYING BOY. 
 
 Then panting woods the breeze will feel 
 
 And bowers, as heretofore, 
 Beneath their load of roses reel ; 
 But I through woodbine lanes shall steal 
 No more, no more. 
 
 Well, lay me by my brother's side, 
 Where late we stood and wept \ 
 For I was stricken when he died, 
 I felt the arrow as he sigh'd 
 His last, and slept. 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 " WILD FLOWERS seem to me the true philanthropists of 
 their race. Their generous and cheerful faces ever give a 
 kindly greeting to the troops of merry village children who 
 rovel in their blossoming wealth ; and right welcome are 
 they gladdening the eyes of the poor mechanic, when he 
 breathes the fresh country air on Sunday, and gathers a 
 handful of cowslips or daffodils, or the prouder foxglove, 
 to carry home, and set in the dim window of his pent-up 
 dwelling. So dear and beautiful are WILD FLOWERS, that 
 one would think every one must love them." 
 
 Miss TWAMLEY. 
 
 Aye, must love them indeed, Lady ! well 
 might BURNS pause with his plough, to lament 
 over the daisy which he had destroyed ; well 
 might WORDSWORTH pen, I know not how 
 many stanzas, to the same simple flower, and 
 to the golden celandine ; and well might 
 another child of song exclaim : 
 
 " Oh ! Ill never envy riches, though toilin* at the plough, 
 There's flowers alang the peasant's path, e'en kinga might 
 stoop to pu'." G. W. 
 
 15 169 
 
170 WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 The primrose and the violet, the cowslip and 
 the daffodil, and all the sweet dwellers in the 
 green lanes, and the shady woods, and the 
 sunny meadows, have ever been the especial 
 favorites, not only of those, who being denied 
 access to the conservatory and the parterre, are 
 not brought into contact with the more richly 
 tinted and gorgeous productions of foreign 
 climes, but also of the whole race of poets, 
 many of whom are surrounded with these 
 splendid exotics, in their dwellings, 'and every 
 day walks ; and most, or all of whom, enjoy 
 frequent opportunities of observing and ad- 
 miring them ; and yet for poems in praise of 
 the geranium and the cactus, we might search 
 in vain ; while for those which celebrate the 
 " wildings of nature," have we not enough to 
 fill volumes ? Aye ! volumes fraught with 
 beauty and fragrance, of which this is but a 
 foretaste and a specimen. 
 
 Not only with vine leaves and ears of corn 
 
 Is nature dress'd, but 'neath the feet of man, 
 
 As at a sovereign's feet, she scatters flowers, 
 
 And sweet and useless plants, which, born to please, 
 
 Disdain to serve." MADAME DE STAEL. 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 171 
 
 We have italicised two words in this quota- 
 tion, because we do not like them. It is our creed 
 and belief that nothing which God has created 
 is useless ; we may not perceive its applicability 
 to any known purpose, but we are not therefore 
 to conclude that it is of no service that it per- 
 forms no important function in the great scheme 
 of universal being our greatest living poet 
 says: 
 
 "Small service is true service while it lasts, 
 
 Of friends, however humble, scorn not one j 
 The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, 
 
 Protects the lingering dew-drop from the sun." 
 
 We are but too apt to look upon part of the 
 vegetation with which the earth is covered 
 " clothed as with a garment of beauty" as 
 worthless and contemptible, especially when 
 there are no blossoms, which with their tint or 
 perfume, afford gratification to the senses ; and 
 to pass by " common weeds" as vile things, not 
 simply useless, but mischievous : 
 
 " Scorn not those rude, unlovely things, 
 
 All cultureless that grow, 
 And rank o'er woods, andwilds, and springs, 
 Their vain luxuriance throw. 
 
172 WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 " Eternal love and wisdom drew 
 The plan of earth and skies j 
 And He the span of heaven that threw, 
 Commands the weeds to rise. 
 
 " Then think not nature's scheme sublime 
 These common things might spare ;- 
 For science may detect in time 
 A thousand virtues there." J. F. SMITH. 
 
 Daily more and more are the mysteries of 
 nature unfolded to us ; daily more and more are 
 her " Hidden Uses" made manifest. 
 
 It is in no irreverent spirit that we venture 
 to quote the command which came to the apostle 
 Peter from heaven, with a slight alteration, to 
 suit our purpose. " What God has created, 
 that call thou not useless" for nothing is there 
 which may not be made applicable to satisfy 
 our bodily or mental wants ; if it contribute not, 
 directly or indirectly, to our sustenance, or 
 comfort, or relief in sickness, yet will it yield 
 moral instruction, or intellectual pleasure, and 
 therefore is it truly serviceable to us. 
 
 " To whisper hope to comfort man 
 
 Whene'er his faith is dim, 
 For whoso caretfa for the flowers 
 Will care much more for him.*' 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 173 
 
 And this is the moral which may be drawn 
 from the meatiest weed, or blade, or leaf, on 
 which we gaze. We have not the original to 
 refer to, but cannot help thinking that useless 
 was not exactly the word to express MADAME 
 DE STAEL'S meaning, as she says directly after, 
 66 which, born to please," and this negatives 
 the idea of their being useless, as it implies an 
 end and a purpose, which they are to answer, 
 though not, perhaps, the highest. 
 
 And now for the second count in the indict- 
 ment the other objectionable word which is 
 also open to the suspicion of being a mistrans- 
 lation ; that flowers disdain to serve, we strongly 
 deny. Of all the creatures and objects which 
 minister to man's wants, or pleasures, they are 
 the gentlest, the most unresisting; he may 
 crush them, trample on them, do with them as 
 he will, yet there they are, ever smiling up in 
 his face, yielding him their fragrance, their 
 nutriment, their alleviation for bodily pain, and 
 mental disquietude : 
 
 " Oh ! tell me not the gentle flowers 
 Disdain to serve mankind. 
 
174 WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 To renovate the sinking powers, 
 
 To soothe the troubled mind, 
 When gloomily the welkin lowers, 
 
 And fortune is unkind ,* 
 " They comfort man in his distress, 
 
 They smile when he is gay ; 
 Their fragrance and their loveliness, 
 
 They yield him day by day ; 
 For patience and for humbleness. 
 
 No servitors like they." H. G-. A. 
 
 They are pulled and scattered to the four 
 winds, by the hand of careless childhood, yet 
 ever do they spring up again for his delight and 
 gladness ^ they are gathered alike by the soft 
 white hand of beauty, and the toil-hardened one 
 of industry, unrepining they breathe out their 
 fragrant lives on the bosom of the former, and 
 borne by the latter into the crowded city, they 
 strive to beautify and perfume his hot and 
 murky dwelling-place. Here is a picture of 
 them thus striving : 
 
 'A broken flower-pot, with a string secured, 
 Contained a living treasure a green clump 
 (Just bursting into bloom) of the field orchis. 
 
 'You care for flowers/ 1 said, ' and that fair thing, 
 The beautiful orchis, seems to flourish well 
 With little light and air/ 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 176 
 
 ' It won't for long/ 
 
 The man made answer, with a mournful smile, 
 Eyeing the plant ' I took it up, poor thing ! 
 But Sunday evening last, from the rich meadow, 
 Where thousands bloom so gay, and brought it here, 
 To smell of the green fields for a few days, 
 Till Sunday comes again and rest mine eyes on, 
 "When I look up, fatigued, from these dead gems 
 And yellow glittering gold/ " Miss BOWLES. 
 
 The man was a working jeweller, and could 
 estimate rightly the great value of the precious 
 ore, and glittering gems, entrusted to him ; and 
 yet more highly did he prize the simple Wild 
 Flower, which reminded him of his rarely 
 enjoyed country walks, and brought something 
 of the freshness and beauty of nature into his 
 home and his heart ; pleasant associations were 
 mingled with the sight of that flower, and it 
 cheered and refreshed him at his labor, to look 
 upon it, and to think; 
 
 " Thus, when within my sunless room, 
 
 Heartsick, and mocked by mammon's leaven, 
 Thy pyramids of purple bloom, 
 Blush through the loneliness and gloom,, 
 My spirit bursts its living tomb, 
 
 And basks beneath the open heaven." 
 
176 WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 We have thus endeavored to defend our 
 beloved friends, the flowers, from the charge of 
 disdaining to serve, by showing the true service 
 which they render to man ; and now, let us 
 give a companion picture to the one above ; 
 it is from Nina Sforza :" 
 
 " I late was passing by a poet's door, 
 Who, on his window-sill, with wasted care, 
 Had placed a hungry shrub for light a want 
 That crowded quarter miserly supplied ; 
 A wild field-rose it was ; it may be slrppe 
 As sweet remembrance of his wanderings ; 
 'Twas withering fast, yet, 'midst its dry, curl'd leaves, 
 One sickly bud had struggled into bloom. 
 That bud, so pale, so common, fix'd my step ; 
 I thought it priceless, and, except for shame, 
 Had very gladly stolen away a leaf; 
 I, whose court-life had ever been perfumed 
 With every rarest flower that we know. 
 Now, think you, 'twas the rose-bud that I saw ? 
 Believe it not ! It was the poet's soul 
 Diffused by mental magic, over all 
 Which environed the proud connection of his name. 
 K. Z. S. TROUGH-TON. 
 
 " Better," says our most delightful of essayists, 
 LEIGH HUNT, " belter hang a wild rose over the 
 toilet, than nothing. The eye that looks in the 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 177 
 
 glass will see there something besides itself, and 
 acquire something of a religious right to respect 
 itself, in thinking by how many objects in the 
 creation the bloom of beauty is shared." And 
 again, speaking of < Breakfast in Summer," 
 
 he says : " g e t flowers on your table, a whole 
 
 nosegay if you can get it, or but two or three, 
 or a single flower, a rose, a pink, nay, a daisy. 
 Bring a few daisies and buttercups, from your 
 last field walk, and keep them alive in a little 
 water ; and preserve but a bunch of clover, or 
 a handful of flowering grass, one of the most 
 elegant, as well as cheap, of nature's productions, 
 and you have something on your table that 
 reminds you of the beauty of God's creation, 
 and gives you a link with the poets and sages 
 that have done it most honour. Put but a rose, 
 or a lily, or a violet, on your table, and you and 
 Lord Bacon have a custom in common ; for 
 that great and wise man was in the habit of 
 having the flowers in season set upon his 
 table, morning, and, we believe, noon, and 
 night ; that is to say, at all his meals ; foi din- 
 ner, in his time, was taken at noon : and why 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 should he not have flowers at all his meals, 
 seeing that they were growing all day ? Now 
 here is a fashion that shalJ last you for ever, if 
 you- please ; never changing with silks, and 
 velvets, nor dependent upon the caprice of some 
 fine gentleman or lady. The fashion of the 
 garments of heaven and earth endures for- 
 ever, and you may adorn' your table with spe- 
 cimens of their drapery, with flowers out of the 
 fields, and golden beams out of the blue ether." 
 Shall we not away, then, reader, to gather 
 the wild beauties of nature, which are so 
 lavishly scattered abroad for us, and adorn our 
 homes with that drapery of the earth and the 
 heavens ? 
 
 For as Miss PARDOE exclaims : " is not the 
 holiness of nature a loftier contemplation than 
 the gilded saloons of the great ? The power 
 to feel and to appropriate the noble gifts of the 
 Creator, eminently more glorious, than the 
 talent to discover the finite perfections of the 
 creature ? Is not the breeze which sweeps 
 over the heathy hill, or through the blossom- 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 179 
 
 scented valley, more redolent of real sweetness 
 than the perfume-laden halls of luxury ?" 
 
 " I know a brook that all the livelong day 
 Babbles the silence of a vale away, 
 With gurgle, gurgle, for its ceaseless song ; 
 Many a hermit flower is found along 
 Its mossy banks some deep secluded, where 
 None knew their being, save the prying air, 
 That is their faithless confident, and tells 
 The fragrant sighs he heard within their cells. 
 Some, less retired, bent vainly o'er the brook, 
 For their sweet image in its mirror look ', 
 A broken reflex in the water-glass 
 Is all they find they gaze they hope alas ! 
 They die despairing, amorous of themselves ! 
 Why still ye not the waters, sylphs and elves ! 
 And let me, in my lonely musing walk, 
 Hear a wild blossom to its beauty talk ? 
 
 " What would it say ? delight and purity 
 And music, surely would its language be 
 To its sweet rival-self within the stream 
 Alas ! this minds me of a long-fled dream ! 
 
 J. A. WADE. 
 
 A dream, doubtless, of vanished beauty of a 
 light that is quenched of fragrance wasted 
 upon the air ! but let us on in our sweet quest, 
 listing, as we go, to the words of the lately 
 
180 WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 departed poet, CAMPBELL : -" I delight in the 
 Flowers of the Field ; they have all some charm 
 or other in my eyes, with their shapes and 
 hues they speak a language of their own, to 
 my imagination ; and when I have admired 
 their beauty, I like to consult the dictionary 
 about their uses and qualities." Better stiil 
 were it to have some friend acquainted with the 
 hidden properties of nature's various produc- 
 tions, to whom, like Thyrsis lamenting for his 
 Damon, one might say : . 
 
 " Thou shalt cull me simples, and shall teach 
 
 Thy friend the name and healing powers of each, 
 From the tall blue-bell to the dwarfish weed, 
 What the dry land, and what the marshes feed; 
 For all their kinds alike to thee are known, 
 And the whole art of Galen is thine own." 
 
 The friends of the poet, above alluded to, 
 might well exclaim, with the concluding words 
 of the quotation : 
 
 "Ah! perish Galen's art, and withered be 
 The useless herbs that gave not health to thee." 
 
 COWPER, PROM MILTON. 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 181 
 
 Wronging, in the bitterness of their grief, the 
 plants which were powerless to save him : 
 
 "Who bade the many-coloured bow 
 With brighter, richer hues to glow, 
 
 And from the lowly Field Flowers rose, 
 To meet the last of all our race, 
 Stern moralizing, face to face, 
 
 With Time and Life, in their last throes." 
 
 H. G. A. 
 
 Let us now put ourselves under the guidance 
 of WILLIAM HOWITT one who knows well 
 where the sweetest Wild Flowers are to be 
 found, and who has, moreover, a true eye for 
 the beautiful and picturesque in nature, and a 
 true heart to sympathize, alike in grief or joy, 
 with his fellow-men. See what an English 
 landscape opens before us as we follow the 
 path which he indicates : u It is evening, what 
 a calm and basking sunshine lies on the green 
 landscape. Look around, all is beauty, and 
 richness, and glory. Those tall elms, which 
 surround the church-yard, letting the grey 
 tower get but a passing glimpse of the river, 
 and that other magnificent circle of solemn 
 trees, which stretch up the side of the same 
 16 
 
WILD FLOWERS 
 
 fair stream, how they hang in the most ver- 
 dant and luxuriant masses of foliage ! What a 
 soft, hazy, twilight floats about them ! What a 
 slumberous calm rests upon them! Slumberous 
 did I say ? no, it is not slumberous ; it has nothing 
 of sleep in its profound repose. It is the depth 
 of a contemplative trance ; us if every tree were 
 a living, thinking spirit, lost in the vastness ol 
 some absorbing thought. It is the hush of a 
 dream-land ; the motionless majesty of an en- 
 chanted forest, bearing the spell of an irrefrag- 
 able silence." Pause here a moment, while 
 we repeat a few lines, which this idea has 
 brought to our memory ; we have but to change 
 the time from evening to night, and it will be 
 exactly applicable : 
 
 "Old trees by night are like men in thought, 
 By poetry to silence wrought ; 
 They stand so still, and they look so wise, 
 With folded arms, and half shut eyes, 
 More shadowy than the shade they cast 
 When the, wan moonlight on the river passed/' 
 
 F. W, FABER. 
 
 And now to continue our examination of the 
 beauties of the prospect before us : " See over 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 183 
 
 those wide meadows, what an affluence of vege- 
 tation ! How that herd of cattle, in color, and 
 form, and grouping, worthy the pencil of Cuyp 
 or Ruysdael, graces the plenty of that field of 
 most lustrous gold ; and all around, the grass 
 growing for the scythe, almost overtops the 
 hedges with its abundance. As we track the 
 narrow footpath, we cannot avoid a lively ad- 
 miration of the rich mosaic of colors that are 
 woven all through them the yellow rattle 
 the crimson stems and heads of the burnet, that 
 plant of beautiful leaves the golden trifolium 
 the light quakegrass the azure milkwort 
 and clover scenting all the air. And lo ! there 
 are the mowers i\i work ! there are the hay- 
 makers ! Green swathes of mown grass hay- 
 cocks and wagons ready to bear them away 
 it is summer, indeed !" We must have another 
 verse of poetry another quaff from the Pierian 
 springs what shall it be ? Oh ! let us quote 
 from a poet whom we have hitherto too much 
 neglected : 
 
 " Hark ! where the sweeping scythe now rips along; 
 Each sturdy mower emulous and strong, 
 
184 WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 Whose writhing form meridian heat defies, 
 Bends o'er his work, and every sinew tries ; 
 Prostrates the waving treasure at his feet, 
 But spares the rising clover, short and sweet. 
 Come HertJth, ! come Jollity ! light-footed, come ; 
 Here hold your revels, and make this your home." 
 
 BLOOMFIELD. 
 
 . Now a/iain for HOWITT'S rich prose : 
 
 1 'What a fragrance comes floating on the 
 gale from the clover in the standing grass ; from 
 the new-mown hay ; and from these sycamore 
 trees, with all their pendant flowers. It is deli- 
 cious ; and yet one cannot help regretting that 
 the year has advanced so far. Here, the wild 
 rose is putting out ; the elder is already in 
 flower ; they are all beautiful, but saddening 
 siefns of the swift- winged time. Let us sit down 
 by this little stream, and enjoy the pleasantness 
 that it presents, without a thought of the future. 
 Ah ! this sweet place is just in its pride. The 
 flags have sprung thickly in the bed of the 
 brook, and their yellow flowers are beginning 
 to show themselves. The green locks of the 
 water ranunculuses are lifted by the stream, and 
 their flowers form snowy islands on the surface ; 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 185 
 
 the water-lilies spread out their leaves upon it 
 like the pallettes of fairy painters ; and that 
 opposite bank, what a prodigal scene of vigorous 
 and abundant vegetation it is. There are the 
 blue geraniums as lovely as ever ; the meadow- 
 sweet is hastening to put out its form-like 
 flowers ; that species of golden-flowered mustard 
 occupies the connecting space between the land 
 and water ; and harebells, the jagged pink 
 lichnis, and flowering grass of various kinds, 
 make the whole bank beautiful."* Beautiful, 
 indeed ! Well might the lady of this painter of 
 Nature sing : 
 
 . "I love the odorous hawthorn flower, 
 
 I love the wilding's bloom to soe 
 I love the light anemonies 
 That tremble to the faintest breez, 
 And hyacinth-like ore hises 
 
 Are very dear to me 
 " The star-wort is a fairy flower, 
 
 The violet is a thing to prize, 
 The wild pink on the craggy ledge, 
 The waving, sword-lik e water's-edge, 
 And e'en the Robin-run-i'-the-hedge, 
 
 Are precious in mine eyes." 
 
 * Rural Life in England. 
 16* 
 
186 WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 And why are they precious? 
 
 "Less that they are so beautiful, 
 Than that they are so plentiful, 
 So free for ever^ child to pull." 
 
 MARY HOWITT. 
 
 Herein the lady agrees with many others who 
 have written on this delightful subject ; as the 
 quotation at the head of our chapter well ex- 
 presses it, Wild Flowers are " the true Phi- 
 lanthropists of Nature ;" says another sweet 
 singer : 
 
 "And then I love the Field Flowers, too, 
 
 Because they are a blessing given 
 E'en to the poorest little one, 
 
 Who wanders 'neath the vault of heaven j 
 The garden flowers are reared by few, 
 
 And to that few belong alone ', 
 But flowers that spring by vale or stream, 
 Each one may claim them for hia own." 
 ^ ANNE PRATT. 
 
 Besides their superior fragrance, to which we 
 shall presently make allusion, there is also 
 another reason named hy this author, for her 
 love of Wild Flowers ; we will give it, not in her 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 187 
 
 own words, but in those of a sister of song. It 
 is that they are fraught with, 
 
 " Sweet memories of that blissful time, 
 Life's day-spring ! lovelier than its prime, 
 When with the bird on summer morn, 
 That carolled earliest from the thorn, 
 I was awake, and singing too, 
 And gathering wild flowers wet with dew." 
 
 CAROLINE BOWLES. 
 
 A writer in the Quarterly Review observes 
 thus : " One characteristic of our native plants 
 we must mention, that if we miss in them some- 
 thing of the gorgeousness and lustre of more 
 tropical flowers, we are more than compensated 
 by the delicacy and variety of their perfume ; 
 and just as our woods, vocal with the nightin- 
 gale, the blackbird, and the thrush, can well 
 spare the gaudy feathers of the macaw, so we 
 can consign the oncidiums, and cactuses, and 
 the impomaeas of the tropics, for the delicious 
 fragrance of our wild banks of violets, our lilies- 
 of-the-valley, our woodbine, or even the passing 
 whiff of a hawthorn bush, a clover or bean field, 
 or a gorse common." Yes we can well spare 
 
188 WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 those gaudy strangers, for the sweet and beau- 
 tiful productions of our own woods and fields 
 possess, in themselves, all that the heart or the 
 imagination can require in a flower ; wandering 
 amid them we may say, with MILTON : 
 
 " Now gentle gales 
 
 Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense 
 Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole 
 These balmy spoils." 
 
 HELIOTROPE. 
 THERE is a flower whose modest eye 
 
 Is turned with looks of light and love, 
 Who breathes her softest, sweetest sigh 
 
 Whene'er the sun is bright above. 
 
 Let clouds obscure, or darkness veil, 
 
 Her fond idolatry is fled ; 
 Her sighs no more their sweets exhale, 
 
 The loving eye is cold and dead. 
 
 Canst thou not trace a moral here, 
 
 False flatterer of the prosperous hour ? 
 
 Let but an adverse cloud appear, 
 And thou art faithless as the flower. 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 
 ^ 
 
 BY ANNE PRATT. 
 
 Why is it that I lo^e the flowers 
 
 That grow in woods, and lanes, and fields 
 Better than all the glowing ones 
 
 The richly cultured garden yields ? 
 Why is it that the daisy has 
 
 A charm for me, all flowers above ; 
 Or why the hawthorn's fragrant breath, 
 
 More than the myrtle's do I love ? 
 
 # 
 The cuckoo-flower and hyacinth, 
 
 These blossoms of each woodland wild, 
 The primrose and anemone, 
 
 O, I have prized them from a child ! 
 And still the. odours that arise 
 
 From clusters of the wild woodbine, 
 Are sweeter, lovelier to me, 
 
 Than scent of Eastern jessamine. 
 
 189 
 
190 WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 And yet the flowers I prize so much, 
 
 Than cultured flowers are not more sweet, 
 And they are withered sooner far, 
 
 Than those we in the garden meet 
 Their colours are not naif so gay 
 
 As tints of flowers from far-off land, 
 From isle of Greece, or Indian grove, 
 
 Nurtured by man with careful hand. 
 
 But meadow flowers bring to my mind 
 
 The thoughts of pleasant days gone by, 
 When with my sisters, hand in hand, 
 
 We roamed beneath the summer sky ; 
 And twined a garland for our hats, 
 
 Of blossom^ from each bush around, 
 And linked the daisies into chains, > 
 
 And culled the cowslips from the ground 
 
 And then I love the field flowers, too, 
 Because they are a blessing given 
 
 Ev'n to the poorest little one, 
 
 That wanders 'neath the vault of heaven ; 
 
WILD FLOWERS. 191 
 
 The garden flowers are reared for few, 
 And to those few belong alone : 
 
 But flowers that spring by vale or stream, 
 Each one may claim them for his own. 
 
 The rich parterre is walled around, 
 
 But meadow lands stretch far and wide, 
 And we may gather lovely flowers 
 
 For miles along the river side ; 
 And far amidst the landscape wild, 
 
 Wander the scenes of beauty o'er, 
 Now lingering in the violet glen, 
 
 Now roaming on the thymy moor. 
 
 Or pause where loam-like meadow queen, 
 
 Scatters her blossoms on the lake 
 Or where the Orchis blooms among 
 
 The lady-fern or feathery brake ; 
 Dr sit beside the winding path 
 
 Bordered by ripening wheat or oat. 
 When on the gentle summer air 
 
 The poppy's crimson banners float. 
 
192 WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 And O, I joy as Spring conies round, 
 
 Flinging her scent o'er glen and hill 
 For though I love the garden flowers 
 
 I love the wild buds better still. 
 Then let me stray into the fields, 
 
 Or seek the green wood's shady bowers, 
 Marking the beauties and the scents, 
 
 Of simple blossoms sweet wild flowers. 
 
 DECISION OF THE FLOWER. 
 
 BY L. E. LANDON. 
 
 AND with scarlet poppies, around like a bower. 
 The maiden found her mystic flower, 
 " Now, gentle flower, I pray thee tell 
 If my lover loves me, and loves me well : 
 So may the fall of the morning dew 
 Keep the sun from fading thy tender blue, 
 Now I number the leaves for my lot 
 He loves not lie loves me he loves me not 
 He loves me yes, thou last leaf, yes * 
 I'll pluck thee not for the last sweet guess ! 
 He loves me !" " Yes," a dear voice sigh'd, 
 And her lover stands by Margaret's side. 
 
THE WILD FLOWERS. 
 
 BY P. J. SMITH. 
 
 SWEET wilding tufts, that 'mid the waste 
 
 Your lowly buds expand ; 
 Though by no sheltering walls embraced, 
 
 Nor trained by beauty's hand : 
 The primal flowers which grace your stems, 
 
 Bright as the dahlias shine, 
 Found thus, like unexpected gems, 
 
 To lonely hearts like mine. 
 
 'Tis a quaint thought, and yet, perchance, 
 
 Sweet blossoms, ye are sprung 
 From flowers that over Eden once 
 
 Their pristine fragrance flung ; 
 That drank the dews of Paradise, 
 
 Beneath the starlight clear ; 
 Or caught from Eve's dejected eyes 
 
 Her first repentant tear. 
 
 17 193 
 
A WILD FLOWER WREATE. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OP " Nug<K SaCT<t" 
 
 If stranger hands might dare 
 A wild-flower wreath prepare, 
 The sweet enthusiastic's hair, 
 
 Her flowing hair to bind 
 Oh ! I would haste to bring 
 The violet of Spring, 
 Whose odours scent the wing 
 
 Of every passing wind. 
 
 Each flower that early blows, 
 The May-bough's wreathed snows, 
 The wild-brier's folded rose, 
 
 And woodbine's fragrant bloom; 
 The speedwell's eye of blue, 
 Suffused with morning dew, 
 Should smilingly glance through 
 
 The tresses of the broom. 
 194 
 
A WILD FLOWER WREATH. 195 
 
 The rustic blushing heath, 
 That lurks the fern beneath, 
 Should grace our wilding wreath 
 
 With many a pendant bell ; 
 The fair anemone 
 Might well with these agree, 
 Reft from her sheltering tree, 
 
 Low in the copfcewood dell. 
 
 No less the floweret pale, 
 
 The lily of the vale 
 
 That scents the roving gale, 
 
 Yet loves its leafy shade ; 
 And well my hand, I ween, 
 (If such my task had been,) 
 Could twine the myrtle green 
 
 To crown the mountain maid. 
 
THE COWSLIP, 
 
 UNFOLDING to the breeze of May, 
 The Cowslip greetsHhe vernal ray ; 
 The topaz and the ruby gem, 
 Her blossom's simple diadem ; 
 And, as the dew-drops gently fall, 
 They tip with pearls her coronal. 
 
 In princely halls and courts of kings 
 Its lustrous ray the diamond flings ; 
 Yet few of those who see its beam, 
 Amid the torch -light's dazzling gleam, 
 As bright as though a meteor shone, 
 Can call the costly prize their own. 
 
 But gems of every form and hue 
 Are glittering here in morning dew ; 
 Jewels that all alike may share 
 As freely as the common air ; 
 No niggard hand, or jealous eye, 
 Protects them from the passer by. 
 196 
 
COWSLIP. 197 
 
 Man to his brother shuts his heart, 
 And Science acts a miser's part ; 
 But Nature, with a liberal hand, 
 Flings wide her stores o'er sea and land. 
 If gold she gives, not single grains 
 Are scatter'd far across the plains ; 
 But lo, the desert streams are roli'd 
 O'er precious beds of virgin gold. 
 If flowers she offers, wreaths are given, 
 As countless as the stars of heaven : 
 Or music 'tis no feeble note 
 She bids along the valleys float ; 
 Ten thousand nameless melodies 
 In one full chorus swell the breeze. 
 
 Oh, art is but a scanty rill 
 That genial seasons scarcely fill. 
 But nature needs no tide's return 
 To fill afresh her flowing urn ; 
 She gathers all her rich supplies 
 Where never-failing waters rise. 
 
DAFFODILS. 
 
 FAIR Daffodils, we weep to see 
 
 You haste away so soon ; 
 As yet the early rising sun 
 
 Has not attained his noon : 
 Stay, stay 
 
 Until the hastening day 
 Has run 
 
 But to the even-song 
 And, having pray'd together, we 
 
 Will go with you along 
 
 We have short time to stay as ye, 
 
 We have as fleet a spring, 
 As quick a growth to meet decay 
 
 As you or any thing ; 
 We die 
 
 As your hours do, and dry 
 Away, 
 
 Like to the summer's rain, 
 Or as the pearls of morning's dew, 
 
 Ne'er to be found again. 
 
 198 
 
THE VIOLETS' SPRING SONG. 
 
 BY L. A. TWAMLEY. 
 
 UNDER the hedge all safe and warm, 
 Sheltered from boisterous wind and storm* 
 
 We violets lie ; 
 
 With each small eye 
 Closely shut while the cold goes hy. 
 
 You look at the bank, 'mid the biting frost, 
 And you sigh and say that we're dead and lost ; 
 
 But lady, stay 
 
 For a sunny day, 
 And you'll find us again alive and gay. 
 
 On mossy banks, under forest trees, 
 You'll find us crowding, in days like these ; 
 
 Purple and blue, 
 
 And white ones too, 
 Peep at the sun and wait for you. 
 
 By maids and matrons, by old and young > 
 By rich and poor our praise is sung ; 
 
 199 
 
200 THE VIOLET'S SPUING SONO. 
 
 And the blind man sighs 
 
 When his sightless eyes 
 He turns to the spot where our perfumes rise. 
 There is not a garden the country through, 
 Where they plant not violets white and blue ; 
 
 By princely hall, 
 
 And cottage small 
 
 For we're sought, and cherished, and culled by all. 
 Yet grand parterres, and stiff-trimmed beds, 
 But ill become our modest heads ; 
 
 We'd rather run, 
 
 In shadow and sun, 
 
 O'er the banks where our merry lives first begun. 
 There, where the birken bough's silvery shine 
 Gleams over the hawthorn and frail woodbine, 
 
 Moss, deep and green, 
 
 Lies thick, between .*<>* 
 The plots where we violet-flowers are seen. 
 And the small gay Celandine's stars of gold 
 Rise sparkling beside our purple's fold : 
 
 Such a regal show 
 
 Is rare, I trow, 
 Save on the banks were violets grow. 
 
TO A ROSE. 
 
 SINCE king and shepherd own 
 
 Thee for the queen of flowers, 
 When thou art fully blown 
 
 In Summer-laughing hours ; 
 Since none partake thy throne ; 
 
 What need a Poet's powers 
 To make thy kingdom known, 
 
 Thou sovereign of the bowers ? 
 
 What need to paint the state 
 
 Of amber-haired Morn ? 
 Or the ripe Day relate, 
 
 Which is in ocean born ? 
 These all confess are great ; 
 
 And yet all tongues adorn 
 Pure love cannot abate, 
 
 Nor duty be forborne. 
 
 201 
 
202 TO A ROSE. 
 
 Thou flower of heavenly seed ! 
 
 Emphatical delight ! 
 Thou, in whose leaves we read 
 
 The soul of crimson light ! 
 That married art, indeed, 
 
 And vow'd to Summer bright ; 
 And didst of Spring proceed ; 
 
 What tongue can paint thee right ? 
 
 Ere thou art born on earth, 
 
 The shepherds sing thy praise ; 
 The cities waken mirth, 
 
 In hope of flowery days : 
 Thou art the chiefest birth, 
 
 That swelling Nature pays, 
 To ransom Winter's dearth, 
 
 And Spring's unkind delays. 
 
 The pink and violet meet, 
 The jasmine dwells in thee, 
 
 The honey-suckle sweet, 
 The jacinth budding free ; 
 
TO A ROSE. 203 
 
 In thee what odors greet 
 The longing sense, agree ; 
 
 And reign in lovely heat 
 As fountains in the sea. 
 
 Methinks thou hast a tongue 
 
 That answers me again, 
 With lovely Muses hung ; 
 
 O, waste not love in vain ; 
 But let HIS praise be sung, 
 
 Who bade me blush, and reign 
 O'er flowers ; by whom I sprung ; 
 
 The God of land and main ! 
 
 My life, I know, is brief ; 
 
 My crimson shall grow pale ; 
 And I shall shed my leaf, 
 
 And all my odors fail : 
 But this can breed no grief; 
 
 / love, and shall prevail ; 
 And God shall give relief, 
 
 And raise me up from bale. 
 
204 TO A BOSS. 
 
 And what the Spring to me, 
 
 Prophetic, may appear, 
 Is heaven, O man, to thee, 
 
 An ever blooming year : 
 Where thou shalt Angels see, 
 
 And their sweet harpings hear \ 
 If thou God's servant be, 
 
 And keep his counsel dear." 
 
 O preacher of the mead, 
 
 Thy sermon is divine ; 
 And doth from God proceed, 
 
 Who cause thee thus to shine ; 
 O Rose, in crimson weed: 
 
 And may I make it mine ; 
 And thus be learn'd indeed, 
 
 When sun and stars decline 1 
 
THE ALPINE VIOLET, 
 
 BY BYRON. 
 
 THE spring is come, the violet's gone, 
 The first-born child of the early sun ; 
 With us she is but a winter flower, . 
 The snow on the hills cannot blast her bower, 
 And she lifts up her dewy eye of blue, 
 To the youngest sky of the self-same hue. 
 
 But when the spring comes with her host 
 Of flowers, that flower, beloved the most, 
 Shrinks from the crowd, that may confuse 
 Her heavenly odors and virgin hues. 
 
 Pluck the others, but still remember 
 
 Their herald out of dire December; 
 
 The morning star of all the flowers, 
 
 The pledge of daylight's lengthened hours; 
 
 And 'mid the roses ne'er forget 
 
 The virgin, virgin violet. 
 
 18 206 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 
 
 FABLES IN VERSE. 
 BY MADAM MONTOLIKU. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 OFT to beguile the sultry hours, 
 In thought I've animated flowers, 
 
 Enlivening every walk ; 
 And though no botanist professed, 
 Their reasoning powers have shrewdly gueesed, 
 
 And longed to hear them talk. 
 
 Tt chanced one lovely day in June, 
 Just at the madding time of moon, 
 
 I spoke this wish aloud ; 
 When from a Pansy, with surprise, 
 I saw a gradual mist arise, 
 
 And form a silvery cloud. 
 206 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 207 
 
 Forth from the glittering veil, behold, 
 In insect trappings, green and gold, 
 
 A faery figure sprung, 
 Her wand a cowslip's stamen seemed, 
 And on her head like diamonds beamed 
 
 A casque with dew-drops hung. 
 
 Her silken pinions as she flew, 
 Seemed by their size and purple hue, 
 
 Spoils of the flowers she left : 
 She soared aloft and touched mine ear, 
 While I, half pleased, half dead with fear, 
 
 Remained of speech bereft. 
 
 Then first a small, melodious tone, 
 Before to mortal wight unknown, 
 
 Struck my enraptured sense ; 
 " Flora," it murmured, " grants thy prayer, 
 Long have her treasures been thy care, 
 
 Receive thy recompense." 
 
 This said, she vanished from my sight, 
 And since, with ever new delight, 
 I tend my fragrant hoards ; 
 
208 THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 
 
 No solitude exists for me, 
 Since every flower and shrub and tree, 
 Society affords. 
 
 GRUMBLING. 
 
 ONE day, when winter ruled the skies, 
 
 I, shivering by the flame, 
 Heard a strange hurly-burly rise, 
 
 And wondered whence it came. 
 
 Spite of the season's biting gales, 
 I traced the uncommon sound, 
 
 And found four plants, in snowy veils, 
 Muttering on .gifted ground. 
 
 A Crocus bright peeped forth alone, 
 The rest lay snug concealed, 
 
 Till each, with discontented tone, 
 Her name and woes revealed. 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 209 
 
 To Flora were their vows addressed, 
 
 In supplicating mood ; 
 The Crocus first her plaints expressed, 
 
 And thus her grievance stood. 
 
 " Oh, Flora, druel mother ! say, 
 
 Why suckle me with snow ? 
 And, why not let thy Crocus stay 
 
 Till rival beauties blow ? 
 
 " In spring, when every shrub and flower 
 
 Rejoices in the sun, 
 Like babe entombed at early hour, 
 
 My shivering race is run. 
 
 " Let me but once, among the gay, 
 
 My place with rapture find ; 
 Once hail the balmy breath of May, 
 
 Thenceforward I'm resigned." 
 
 She ceased ; another plaintive* 1 moan 
 
 Arose from neighbouring root ; 
 The modest Violet, wayward grown, 
 
 Presumed to urge her suit. 
 18* 
 
210 THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 
 
 " Oh, hear a timid suppliant's prayer, 
 
 Nymph of the blushing hours, 
 Incline, and rescue from despair, 
 
 The most forlorn of Flowers ! 
 
 < 
 
 " Fair am I formed, and sweet 'tis true, 
 Thy favourite blue-eyed maid ; 
 
 Each spring am fed with pearly dew, 
 But cloistered in the shade. 
 
 
 " Were I exalted on my stem, 
 
 By solar beams inspired ; 
 What Pink, what Rose, what fragrant gem, 
 Like me would be admired ?" 
 
 " How," cried, with royal pride, the Rose, 
 
 (Betrayed by her petition, 
 Or else what mortal could suppose 
 
 She liked not her condition ?) 
 
 " Shall such mean reptiles dare complain, 
 
 Sweet ruler of the year ! 
 While I, thy vice-queen, crowned in vain, 
 
 Here shed the silent tear ? 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 
 
 Though bright my tints, perfumed my breath, 
 
 Though cherished by the fair, x 
 Though when I fade, even after death, 
 
 My virtues honored are : 
 
 " Yet in my season, numerous powers 
 
 Approach too near the throne ; 
 The embroidered garden, rich with flowers, 
 
 Scarce will my empire own. 
 
 " If blushing to thy court I came, 
 
 When autumn rules the day, 
 Then should I sovereign homage claim, 
 
 And hold despotic sway." 
 
 Despotic sway, indeed !" replied 
 
 The image of the sun ; 
 In June rejoice to curb thy pride,-. 
 
 My reign is not begun. 
 
 " Though native of a distant clime, 
 
 No British bloom I boast ; 
 Yet know, proud plant ! my form sublime, 
 
 Eclipses all thine host. 
 
212 THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 
 
 " Goddess ! in radiant glories dressed, 
 
 Let me henceforth appear, 
 .By summer's brightest beams caressed, 
 
 Nor wait the closing year." 
 
 " Ungrateful tribe !" with angry pause, 
 The indignant Goddess cries, 
 
 " Not in the season's wholesome laws, 
 Your cause of grievance lies. 
 
 " Spoiled by prosperity, ye pine, 
 
 Like many a pampered fair ; 
 But wo to all, should I incline, 
 
 And grant to each her prayer. 
 
 " So nicely are your hours arranged, 
 
 To every season linked, 
 That Nature's laws one moment changed, 
 
 Your race would be extinct." 
 
 She spoke ; then bade the blast arise, 
 
 Her message to convey ; 
 Boreas, swift rushing through the skies. 
 
 Swept all their sighs away. 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 213 
 
 FABLE II. 
 
 SCANDAL, 
 
 OB THE PAINTED LADY 8WEET-PBA. 
 
 GAY Anemone, daughter of Ar 
 
 (Her ancestors sprung from the wood) 
 
 To Ranunculus, friend of her heart, 
 Chattered scandal as fast as she could. 
 
 One evening the subject she chose, 
 
 Was peculiarly painful to me ; 
 For my favourite next to the Rose, 
 
 Is the pink-and-white sweet-scented Pea. 
 
 "Look there !" said the fanciful flower, 
 (By whimsical botanists dressed) 
 
 How yon vain youthful plant of an hour, 
 Smiles and flaunts like a beauty professed, 
 
 Though with us in the garden displayed, 
 
 Unimproved her corollas remain, 
 Still blushing, unformed, unarrayed, 
 
 Like her cousins who bask on the plain." 
 
214 THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 
 
 " How blushing !" her friend, sneering, cries, 
 66 The old Daffodil whispered last night, 
 
 And you know on those subjects she's wise, 
 That this innocent paints red and white. 
 
 " While her exquisite honeyed perfume 
 For which the bees teaze her to death, 
 
 They have found too, and so I presume, 
 Is fictitious to cover her breath. 
 
 6C Then to see how she flirts with them all, 
 How she aims in a nosegay to shine 
 
 And because she is painted and tall, 
 Conceits herself blooming and fine." 
 
 A Sweet-William, concealed in the shade, 
 Who their kind observations had heard, 
 
 Much loving the bright-bosomed maid, 
 Thought it high time to put in a word. 
 
 " Fine ladies, your eloquence spare, 
 
 Oh, spare it, in pity to me ! 
 Or my heart is quite lost to the fair, 
 
 Supremely fair, sweet-scented Pea. 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 215 
 
 For envy alone could suggest 
 
 The rank malice that fell from your tongue, 
 And your censures completely expressed, 
 
 That she's innocent, lovely, and young. 
 
 Pink and silver, like midsummer skies, 
 Is it thence you her blushes defame, 
 
 That, amazed at her own brilliant dyes, 
 Nature once stooped to Art for a name ! 
 
 * 
 " By thus over-shooting the mark, 
 
 Poor ill-nature defeats her own end ; 
 As a glow-worm's more bright in the dark, 
 You're but foils to my beautiful friend ; 
 
 (6 Doomed malicious old virgins to fade, 
 
 Whom multiplied petals deform, 
 While she her soft banner displayed, 
 
 Soon will shelter her fruit from the storm." 
 
 The ladies felt something like shame, 
 And indignant were ready to cry, 
 
 They e'en vowed no more beauties to blame- 
 That is when Sweet- William is by. 
 
216 THE ENCHANTED P I A N T 8. 
 
 DESPAIR. 
 
 LIST, maidens, in this witching hour, 
 
 How a charmed Hare-bell lovod a swain, 
 Yclep'd the shepherd of the bower, 
 
 Who cared not for her pain. 
 
 
 
 Yet he, forsooth, was kind and good, 
 And he wooed Geraldine the fair, 
 
 And gathered garlands in the wood 
 To deck her golden hair. 
 
 He culled the wild Rose ^ret with dew, 
 He culled the Lily of the vale, 
 
 And Eglantine, and Violet blue, 
 Sweet May, and Primrose pale. 
 
 And eke this small bell, mid the grass, 
 His eye exploring oft would meet 
 
 And yet he stooped not, for alas ! 
 She breathed no tempting sweet. 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 217 
 
 Oh !" then, in pleading strain, cried she, 
 " Too lovely shepherd of the bower ! 
 
 Would that I were, till plucked by thee, 
 The green wood's sweetest flower. 
 
 " And fading, on thy gentle breast 
 
 One happy, happy moment lie, 
 Once to thy heart be fondly pressed, 
 
 And then, rejoicing, die." 
 
 One luckless morn this lover flew 
 O'er dells and dingles to the grove, 
 
 To greet with flowrets bathed in dew 
 The birth-day of his love. 
 
 Alas ! he flew with careless speed, 
 For he right gladsome was and young, 
 
 And crushed the Hare-bell xf the mead, 
 Who thus her death-lay sung : 
 
 " O, shepherd, so beloved "by me 
 
 My early doom I joyous meet, 
 Too happy, since disdained by thee, 
 
 To perish at thy feet." 
 19 
 
218 THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 
 
 Damsels, profit by my story, 
 
 Thus in un fashioned phrase rehearsed, 
 Prize your peace, and maiden glory, 
 
 Nor love who loves not first. 
 
 FABLE IV. 
 
 SENSIBILITY. 
 
 FEELING ! by words so ill defined, 
 
 So lovely in an honest mind, 
 
 How art thou grown in fashion's schools, 
 
 The mask of vice, the cant of fools 
 
 How oft impatience, temper's storm, 
 For sanction grasps thy glowing form. ! 
 How affectation, beauty's shame, 
 And weakness prostitute thy name ! 
 
 How oft, by songs and novels taught, 
 They who ne'er knew one generous thought, 
 Their sensibilities reveal, 
 Sacred to such as truly feel. 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 219 
 
 She who the orphan's tear neglects, 
 Flavia, the tragic muse affects, 
 In sorrow with the heroine vies 
 Does Flavia feel, because she cries ! 
 
 While love-lorn nymphs, whom vows deceive, 
 Unmoved, their roof paternal leave ; 
 Passion for sentiment mistake, 
 And doom a parent's heart to break. 
 
 My fancy, wandering, uncontrolled, 
 Once to the river's side t strolled, 
 When to my mind these thoughts occurred> 
 Wakened by plaintive sounds I heard. 
 
 The breeze was gentle as my theme, 
 And Cynthia mild as poet's dream ; 
 And hushed was every leafy spray, 
 Save the sad subject of my lay. 
 
 A Willow, bending o'er the flood, 
 Her leaves just starting from the bud, 
 Like bird of night, I heard complain, 
 In moping melancholy strain. 
 
220 THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 
 
 <* Ah, nature ! why, when all is gay, 
 Or resting from the toils of day, 
 Why is my waking soul the shrine 
 Of sense so exquisitely fine ? 
 
 (f If but a sunbeam strikes too warm, 
 How faint my undulating form ! 
 The most dispirited of trees, 
 If hollow sounds the evening breeze. 
 
 " When cloudy yon blue vault appears, 
 Instant I droop, dissolved in tears ; 
 If but a Poplar frowns in scorn, 
 I sorrow that I e'er was bom." 
 
 While thus she mourned, she sobbed aloud, 
 And to the stream her branches bowed ; 
 I gazed ; and still she wept and sighed, 
 Yet seemed to feel a secret pride. 
 
 An Alder, by her plaints awoke, 
 Thus in reproachful accents spoke, 
 " Why, Willow, why these vigils keep, 
 And break the sacred hour of-sleep ? 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 221 
 
 " Why still deem Nature's laws perverse, 
 Who make her choicest gifts a curse ? 
 Feeling, whose shrine thy tears profane, 
 Is not the eternal nurse of pain. 
 
 When rain and tempest rule the hours, 
 How sympathize the plants and flowers ? 
 The sun once more revives the plain, 
 They laugh with hope and joy again. 
 
 ** Mark pleasure's fascinating wiles, 
 And beauty's heart-illumined smiles ; 
 The eye's quick glancing rapture tells, 
 Unquestioned, where the angel dwells. 
 
 t( Where points the moon-beam, dost thou see, 
 Near yon gray stone, a lofty tree ? 
 The Cypress, mourner of the grove, 
 Placed by the hand of widowed love ? 
 
 " His grief with dignity he bears, 
 A dark and settled sorrow wears ; 
 Affects no attitudes of wo, 
 And scorns one trivial tear should flow. 
 19* 
 
222 THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 
 
 " The genuine anguish of the heart, 
 Nor tears, nor sobs, nor groans impart, 
 But Jike this deep and silent wave, 
 Steals without murmur to the grave. 
 
 To him, who pines with grief sincere, 
 Like dreams of heavenly bliss appear, 
 The fancied evils you 'deplore " 
 She paused the Willow wept the more. 
 
 FABLE Y. 
 
 CONTENTION. 
 
 A CHESTNUT-TREE laden with bloom, 
 
 A Laburnum with boughs dropping gold, 
 
 A Hyacinth breathing perfume, 
 
 One Spring morning proceeded to scold. 
 
 The cause of the quarrel averred, 
 Was a doubt in an ill-fated hour, 
 
 Which for beauty, by man is preferred, 
 The Tree, or tta Shrub, or the Flower. 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 228 
 
 The Flower, as a Lady spoke first, 
 
 And (illiberal Satire says) most, 
 Sweets, garlands, charms, emblems rehearsed, 
 
 And made lovers, and sonnets, her boast. 
 
 But this was so common a ditty, 
 
 And the shrub held her merits so cheap, 
 
 That he swore she was pretty and witty, 
 And besought her her counsel to keep. 
 
 "Thy delights," added he, " are confessed, 
 Truly nature has made thy race fair, 
 
 But thy beauties by monarchs caressed, 
 Thy favors e'en cottagers share. 
 
 "We shrubs of a lineage refined 
 Ne'er stoop with plebeians to bloom, 
 
 Though Syringas, of ignoble kind, 
 By chance may the village perfume. 
 
 So graceful our flexible arms, 
 
 Such fragrance our blossoms exhale, 
 
 That e'en forest-trees envy our charms, 
 And parterres with vexation turn pale." 
 
224 THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 
 
 The Chestnut, indignant and proud, 
 Frowned, as if he both parties despised, 
 
 And shaking his branches aloud, 
 
 In few words his pretensions comprised. 
 
 *< Sweet Flowret," (he flattered the sex) 
 " I perceive my protection's required. 
 
 And lament yonder coxcomb should vex 
 You, made to be loved and admired. 
 
 " But no wonder he triumphs o'er you, 
 Who ventures with Oaks to compare, 
 
 They whose might Britain's enemies rue, 
 Who the glory of conquerors share. 
 
 " Let fops ring their own empty praises, 
 
 Who true insignificance feel, 
 Self-boasting but ridicule raises, 
 
 Our merits let others reveal." 
 
 The furious Laburnum replied, 
 
 The Chestnut retorted again, 
 The flower with the strongest took side, 
 
 Yet endeavored their rage to restrain. 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 225 
 
 But why to curb anger aspire ? 
 
 'Tis a torrent that roars in the mind ; 
 As easy to reign in the fire, 
 
 Or check the wild gusts of the wind. 
 
 Each grew so outrageous at last, 
 Such unparalleled insults occurred 
 
 And they all talked together so fast, 
 
 That I scarce could distinguish one word. 
 
 So fearing that breakfast might wait, 
 And conscious no blood could ensue, 
 
 I left them to end the debate, 
 
 And came home to relate it to you. 
 
 FA.BLE VI. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 FANCY not, men, who read my page 
 That only care and spleen engage 
 
 The blooming tribes I sing ; 
 No they enjoy the world like you, 
 Make love, feed, sleep, and quafTthe dew, 
 
 And frolic in the spring. 
 
226 THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 
 
 Like mortals, too, of various taste, 
 
 Some plants are frail, and some are chaste, 
 
 Some with affection blessed ; 
 The Hedysarum loves the sun, 
 Coquets it till his race is run, 
 
 Then nods, and sinks to rest. 
 
 While the Mimosa, modest maid, 
 Even at the zephyr's breath dismayed, 
 
 The virgin's fear portrays; 
 And Lupins, whom their buds delight, 
 Who shield them from the damps of night, 
 
 Deserve a mother's praise. 
 
 But scandal says (what won't she say ?) 
 That every flower and plant is gay, 
 
 By nature's precepts trained ; 
 But lest my muse censorious prove, 
 I only sing their mortal love, 
 
 Too pure to be arraigned. 
 
 At six, one balmy summer morn, 
 To hail June's perfumes newly born, 
 I through the shrubbery strayed 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 227 
 
 When from the myriads all around, 
 The accustomed soft and silvery sound, 
 Rose murmuring through the shade. 
 
 But chiefly I inclined my ear, 
 A curious dialogue to hear 
 
 Between two amorous flowers ; 
 What woman but had done the same ? 
 Ffcr each was talking of his flame, 
 
 Just as we talk of ours. 
 
 " Eet Tulip hear, and judge our cause. 
 And we be guided by his laws," 
 
 A gallant Larkspur cried : 
 "Done," cried a Pink, with double crest, 
 " Which of us Silvia loves the best. 
 
 Let Tulip now decide." 
 
 When Silvia, goddess of the groves, 
 Enchanted through her garden roves, 
 Soon as my tints she spies, 
 
228 THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 
 
 With what delight she stops to gaze, 
 Soft as descending dews her praise, 
 Bright as the sun her eyes. 
 
 When Silvia, by the breeze caressed, 
 Herself the queen of flowers confessed, 
 
 Appears, eclipsed they pine, 
 For me she oft the Rose resigns, 
 And sighing o'er my form inclines, 
 
 Her breath more sweet than mine. 
 
 Behold this spot, how large a space 
 She yields to us, her favourite race, 
 
 Placed here in crowded ranks ; 
 Armed with our spurs, I heard her swear, 
 ec None but the brave deserved the fair ;" 
 
 I blushed, and bowed my thanks. 
 
 Just now our variegated hue, 
 And rich corollas hung with dew. 
 Attracted Silvia's eye, 
 
THE ENCHANTED PLANTS. 229 
 
 She placed the loveliest on her breast, 
 And in a basket heaped the rest, 
 By chance she passed me by. 
 
 " Enough, enough !" Sir Tulip cries, 
 " Be wise, brave Larkspur, yield the prize ; 
 x A word before we part ; 
 Value not what a lady says, 
 Whom her words slight, or whom they praise. 
 Her actions speak her heart." 
 
 THE WALL-FLOWER. 
 
 BY WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 AND well the lonely infant knew 
 Recesses where the wall-flower grew, 
 And honey-suckle loved to crawl 
 Up the low crag and ruin'd wall ; 
 I deem'd such nooks the sweetest shade, 
 The sun in all his round surveyed, 
 And still I thought that shattered tower, 
 The mightiest work of human power. 
 20 
 
TEMPTATION. 
 
 A FLORAL FABLE. 
 
 *<WHY, flower celestial blue, oh, tell, 
 
 Why droops thy silken head ; 
 Why scarce unfolded hangs thy bell. 
 Why are those dew-drops shed ? 
 
 u Has the east blighting nipped thy buds, 
 
 Have the slugs pierced thy leaves, 
 Have the hot sun-beams drank the floods, 
 Campanula thus grieves ? 
 
 " Say, on this dew-bespangled lawn, 
 
 Encircling our abode, 
 Which mingling trees and shrubs adorn ? 
 With fragrant blossoms strew d. 
 230 
 
TEMPTATION. 
 
 " Watered and sheltered from thy birth, 
 
 Beneath the Acacia bough, 
 Placed on this chosen spot of earth, 
 What flower so blessed as thou ?" 
 
 Thus a bright Lupin, in the grove, 
 Kind as a summer-shower, 
 
 To sooth, in gentle accents strove, 
 A melancholy flower. 
 
 " Ah, wo is me !" with mournful voice, 
 
 I heard the plaint reply, 
 " Ne'er shall Convolvulus rejoice, 
 
 Here doomed to pine and die. 
 
 " The sun was scarcely set last night, 
 
 My bells began to close, 
 When, to my half-discerning sight, 
 A lovely vision rose. 
 
 " How shall my artless speech describe 
 
 The glories of its form ? 
 It seemed of that aerial tribe, 
 Which here at noontide swarm. 
 
232 TEMPTATION. 
 
 " From yonder brake on rainbow wing, 
 
 It soared with solemn flight, 
 Two wings were pale as leaves in spring, 
 Two like the poppy bright. 
 
 < Sweet flower J Oh I sweeter far,' it said, 
 6 Than Musk-rose of the dale ; 
 Sweeter than Furze, or Thy my bed, 
 On Orange-scented gale ! 
 
 f t At early dawn, thy sapphire brood 
 
 I passed (to roving given) 
 And thought, in glassy wave, I viewed 
 The smiling face of heaven. 
 
 < < So beauteous, why stay here and sigh ? 
 
 Oh, grant thy lover's prayer ! 
 With us gay wanderers of the sky, 
 Come float in fields of air/ 
 
 " Then with a pure etherial kiss, 
 It press'd my leaves and fled ; 
 I sigh for liberty and bliss, 
 Fix'd to my earthy be<L" 
 
TEMPTATION. 238 
 
 Oh, shame !" said Lupin, " shame to grieve, 
 
 Beware the tempter's theme 
 Thus fell the flower of Eden, Eve, 
 Deluded by a dream, 
 
 % 
 Yon sun-bom tribes, like man, may range, 
 
 With stronger wills impressed, 
 But shall the wild desire of change, 
 Infect thy gentler breast ? 
 
 They who o'er hill, and dale and flood, 
 
 A thousand perils brave, 
 Oft welter in the field of blood, 
 Or perish in the wave. 
 
 V 
 
 We, happier far, their pleasure share, 
 
 Happier in death, our doom, 
 Fade in the garlands of the fair, 
 Or strew the hero's tomb. 
 
 '< Th'en, oh ! beware the flatterer's speech, 
 
 Thy favored station keep" 
 
 But long ere Lupin ceased to preach, 
 The Flowret fell asleep. 
 20* 
 
VULGARITY. 
 
 FLORAL FABLE. 
 
 ONE August morn, before the sun 
 Had reached his glorious height, 
 
 What time, ere harvest is begun, 
 The corn-fields most delight. 
 
 Snug by a hedge, o'erhung with trees, 
 Where blades less numerous grew, 
 
 A nest of Poppies, placed at ease, 
 Conversed with Bottles blue. 
 
 I wonder much,'* with rustic grace, 
 
 A Poppy thus began, 
 Why our mild inoffensive race 
 
 Is so despised by man. 
 234 
 
VULGARITY. 286 
 
 " The farmer, in whose fields we're found, 
 
 Rejects us with disgrace, 
 And looks on Poppies in his ground, 
 
 As pimples in his face. 
 
 i 
 " Man too, of strange, perverted taste, 
 
 Miscalls our potent sweets ; 
 Yet leeks are mid his dainties placed, 
 
 And onions crown his treats, *. 
 
 " The same high parentage we claim 
 
 With oriental plants, 
 And near relations, bear his name, 
 
 Who in the garden flaunts. 
 
 " Owned to by soporific powers, 
 Who share the doctor's pride, 
 
 Connected with physician flowers, 
 To science we're allied. 
 
 9 
 
 "How bright, mid universal green, 
 
 Our scarlet host appears, 
 Not in more splendid garb are seen, 
 
 St. James' Volunteers. 
 
286 VULGARITY. 
 
 And we, a mild cerulean fair," 
 
 A Blue-bottle replies, 
 Though less conspicuous, proudly wear 
 
 The livery of the skies. 
 
 " From Switzerland's romantic heights, 
 
 Sprung our exotic race, 
 Who now this gentle soil delights, 
 
 Who British gardens grace. 
 
 Let Roses still in hackneyed strain, 
 
 With Celia's Lilies blend, 
 To blue-eyed Marian's sighing swain, 
 
 Our tints new flatteries lend. 
 
 H While clowns, those tasteless sons of gain, 
 
 Contemn the painted meads, 
 On profits bent, our charms disdain, 
 
 And scoffing call us Weeds. 
 
 * 
 Amid the biades that glittered round, 
 
 One loftier than the rest, 
 With four-fold spiky honors crowned, 
 
 The motley throng addressed. 
 
VULGARITY. 237 
 
 Ye vulgar flowers,' (she seemed to frown) 
 
 6 Who our bright limits share, 
 Intruders (as at routs in town 
 
 Queer country neighbors are.) 
 
 * Where industry profusion yields, 
 
 How dare ye creep so near ? 
 Go, lurk in cold neglected fields ; 
 
 No gipsies harbor here. 
 
 
 
 < Blasting the boon, to toil assigned, 
 
 111 omened plants ye blow, 
 Ceres, indignant, hates your kind, 
 
 Nor prospers where ye grow.' ' 
 
 She spoke ; when lo ! a hostile troop 
 
 The reaper band appears ; 
 The trembling flowers began to droop 
 
 The Wheat to shake her ears. 
 
 I 
 
 Alas ! they chose that very morn 
 
 To scatter death around, 
 And Poppies, Blue-bottles, and Corn, 
 
 Were levelled with the ground. 
 
VANITY. 
 
 A LILAC, Flora's darling child, 
 The shrubbery's early pride, 
 
 In magic accents sweetly wild, 
 With exultation cried, 
 
 Avaunt from me, ye tardy flowers 
 That grovel near the ground, 
 
 Compelled to wait for sultry hours, 
 In verdant fetters bound ! 
 
 While I, precursor oft of May, 
 
 In orient splendor dressed, 
 Make the cold face of nature gay, 
 
 Her first-born most caressed. 
 
 " Warm with benevolence, I bloom, 
 Pride of the embowering shade, 
 
 Or pluck'd, the gorgeous dome perfume, 
 Or deck yon matchless maid. 
 238 
 
VANITY. 239 
 
 " Not even the queen of shrubs, the Rose, 
 
 Can double gifts bestow, 
 Useless her humble foliage blows, 
 
 Though bright her petals glow." 
 
 This uttered with triumphant mien, 
 Her light leaves swelled with pride ; 
 
 Child of the valley, mild, serene, 
 The Lily thus replied : 
 
 Vain blossom, gem of transient doom 
 Whence thy presumptuous boast ? 
 
 That mid Spring's yet unripened bloom, 
 Thy charms are courted most. 
 
 True, nature fixed with care divine 
 
 Mid opening buds thy reign ; 
 What place to thee could June assign 
 
 Amid her thronging train ? 
 
 * Where trees in full luxuriance grow, 
 
 How vain thy boasted shade ! 
 Where in bright ranks Carnations blow, 
 
 How would thy faint hues fade ! 
 
240 
 
 w By Julia are thy sweets confessed, 
 Soft mingling with the gale ; 
 
 But place thee on her snowy breast, 
 How soon thy odors fail. 
 
 " Fair mid her leaves, thy sister see 
 
 In virgin tints attired, 
 She dwells not on her charms, like thee, 
 
 Yet, is she less admired ?" 
 
 Abashed her purple blushes fled, 
 
 The pride of summer came, 
 And Lilacs numbered with the dead, 
 
 No more our shepherds name. 
 
 ON THE ROSE. 
 
 BY SIR H. WOTTON. 
 
 YE violets, that first appear, 
 By your pure purple mantle known, 
 Like the proud virgins of the year, 
 As if the spring were all your own 
 What are ye when the Rose is blown ? 
 
SONGS AND CHORUS OP THE FLOWERS. 
 
 BV LBIOH HUNT. 
 
 ROSES. 
 
 WE are blushing roses, 
 
 Bending with our fulness, 
 'Midst our close-capp'd sister buds 
 
 Warming the green coolness. 
 
 Whatsoe'er of beauty 
 
 Yearns and yet reposes, 
 Blush, and bosom, and sweet breath, 
 
 Took a shape in roses. 
 
 Hold one of us lightly 
 
 See from what a slender 
 . Stalk we bower in heavy blooms, 
 And roundness rich and tender : 
 21 241 
 
242 SONGS AND CHORUS OF THE FLOWERS, 
 
 Know you not our only 
 Rival flower the human ? 
 
 Loveliest weight on lightest foot, 
 Joy-abundant woman ? 
 
 WE are lilies fair, 
 
 The flower of virgin light ; 
 Nature held us forth, and said, 
 
 " Lo ! my thoughts of white. 
 
 Ever since then, angels 
 
 Hold us in their hands ; 
 You may see them where they take 
 
 In pictures their sweet stands* 
 
 Like the garden's angels 
 
 Also do we seem ; 
 And not the less for being crown'd 
 
 With a goJden dream. 
 
 Could you see around us 
 
 The enamour'd air, 
 You would see it pale with bliss 
 
 To hold a thing so fair. 
 
SONGS AND CHORUS OF THE FLOWERS. 243 
 
 POPPIES. 
 
 WE are slumbering poppies, 
 
 Lords of Lethe downs, 
 Some awake, and some asleep, 
 
 Sleeping in our crowns. 
 What perchance our dreams may know, 
 Let our serious beauty show. 
 
 Central depth of purple, 
 
 Leaves more bright than rose 
 Who shall tell what brightest thought 
 
 Out of darkest grows ? 
 Who, through what funereal pain, 
 Souls to love and peace attain ? 
 
 Visions aye are on us, 
 
 Unto eyes of power ; 
 Pluto's always-setting sun, 
 
 And Proserpine's bower : 
 There, like bees, the pale souls come 
 For our drink, with drowsy hum. 
 
 Taste, ye mortals, also ; 
 
 Milky-hearted, we ; 
 Taste, but with a reverent care ; 
 
 Active-patient be. 
 
244 SONGS AND CHORUS OF THE FLOWERS. 
 
 Too much gladness brings to gloom 
 Those who on the gods presume. 
 
 WE are the sweet flowers, 
 Born of sunny showers, 
 (Think, whene'er you see us, what our beauty 
 
 saith ;) 
 
 Utterance, mute and bright, 
 Of some unknown delight, 
 We fill the air with pleasure, by our simple 
 
 breath : 
 
 All who see us love us 
 We befit all places : 
 
 Unto sorrow we give smiles and unto graces, 
 races. 
 
 Mark our ways, how noiseless 
 All, and sweetly voiceless, 
 Though the March-winds pipe, to make our 
 
 passage clear ; 
 Not a whisper tells 
 Where our small seed dwells, 
 Nor is known the moment green, when our tips 
 appear. 
 
SONGS AND CHORUS OP THE FLOWERS. 245 
 
 We thread the earth in silence, 
 In silence build our bowers 
 And leaf by leaf in silence show, till we .laugh 
 
 a-top, sweet flowers. 
 The dear lumpish baby, 
 Humming with the May-bee, 
 Hails us with his bright star, stumbling through 
 
 the grass ; 
 
 The honey-dropping moon, 
 On a night in June, 
 Kisses our pale pathway leaves, that felt the 
 
 bridegroom pass. 
 Age, the wither' d clinger, 
 On us mutely gazes, 
 And wraps the thought of his last bed in his 
 
 childhood's daisies. 
 See (and scorn ail duller 
 Taste) how heav'ri loves color ; 
 How great Nature, clearly, joys in red and 
 
 green ; 
 
 What sweet thoughts she thinks 
 t3f vioJets and pinks, 
 And a thousand flushing hues, made solely to 
 
 be seen : 
 
 21* 
 
246 SONGS AND CHOBTTS OF THE FLOWERS. 
 
 See her whitest lilies 
 Chill the silver showers, 
 
 And what a red mouth is her rose, the woman 
 of her flowers, 
 
 Uselessness divinest, 
 
 Of a use the finest, 
 Painteth us, the teachers of the end of use ; 
 
 Travellers, weary-eyed, 
 
 Bless us, far and wide ; 
 
 Unto sick and prison'd thoughts we give sudden 
 truce : 
 
 Not a poor town window 
 
 Loves its sickliest planting, 
 But its wall speaks loftier truth than Babylonian 
 vaunting. 
 
 Sagest yet the uses, 
 
 Mix'd with our sweet juices, 
 
 Whether man or May-fly, profit of the balm, 
 As fair fingers heal'd 
 Knights from the olden field 
 
 We hold cups of mightiest force to give the 
 wildest calm. 
 
SONGS AND CHORUS OF THE FLOWERS. 247 
 
 Ey'n the terror, poison, 
 Hath its plea for blooming ; 
 Life it gives to reverent lips, though death to 
 the presuming. 
 
 And oh ! our sweet soul-taker, 
 
 That thief, the honey-maker, 
 What a house hath he, by the thymy glen ! 
 
 In his talking rooms 
 
 How the feasting fumes, 
 Till the gold cups overflow to the mouths of men ! 
 
 The butterflies come aping 
 
 Those fine thieves of ours, 
 And flutter round our rifled tops, like tickled 
 flowers with flowers. 
 
 See those tops, how beauteous ! 
 
 What fair service duteous 
 Round some idol waits, as on their lord the Nine 
 
 Elfin court 'twould seem ; 
 
 And taught, perchance, that dream 
 Which the old Greek mountain dreamt, upon 
 nights divine. 
 
248 SONGS AND CHORUS OF THE FLOWERS. 
 
 To expound such wonder 
 Human speech avails not ; 
 Yet there dies no poorest weed, that such a 
 glory exhales not. 
 
 Think of all these treasures 
 Matchless works and pleasures, 
 
 Every one a marvel, more than thought can say, 
 Then think in what bright showers 
 We thicken fields and bowers, 
 
 And with what heaps of sweetness half stifle 
 
 wanton May : 
 Think of the mossy forests 
 By the bee-birds haunted, 
 
 And all those Amazonian plains, lone lying as 
 enchanted. 
 
 Trees themselves are ours ; 
 Fruits are born of flowers ; 
 Peach, and roughest nut, were blossoms in the 
 
 spring : 
 
 The lusty bee knows well 
 The news, and comes pell-mell, 
 And dances in the gloomy thicks with darksome 
 antheming. 
 
SONGS AND CHORUS OF THE FLOWERS. 24$ 
 
 Beneath the very burthen 
 Of planet-pressing ocean, 
 
 We wash our smiling cheeks in peace a thought 
 for meek devotion. 
 
 Tears of Phoebu3 missings 
 
 Of Cytherea's kissings, 
 
 Have in us been found, and wise men find them 
 still; 
 
 Drooping grace unfurls 
 
 Still Hyacinthus' curls, 
 And Narcissus loves himself in the selfish rill : 
 
 Thy red lip, Adonis, 
 
 Still is wet with morning ; 
 And the step, that bled for thee, the rosy brier 
 adorning. 
 
 O ! true things are fables, 
 Fit for sagest tables, 
 And the flowers are true things yet no fables 
 
 they; 
 
 Fables were not more 
 Bright, nor loved of yore 
 Yet they grew not, like the flowers, by every 
 old pathway : 
 
250 SONGS AND CHORUS OF THE FLOWERS. 
 
 Grossest hand can test us , 
 Fools may prize' us never: 
 Yet we rise, and rise, and rise marvels sweet 
 for ever. 
 
 Who shall say that flowers 
 Dress not heaven's own bowers ! 
 Who its love, without us, can fancy or sweet 
 
 floor? 
 
 Who shall even dare 
 To say we sprang not there 
 And came not down that Love might bring one 
 
 piece of heaven the more ? 
 O ! pray believe that angels 
 From those blue dominions, 
 Brought us in their white laps down, 'twixt their 
 golden pinions. 
 
THE LAY OP THE ROSE. 
 
 BY ELIZABETH B. BARRETT. 
 
 " Discordance that can accord; 
 And accordance to discord." 
 
 The fiomaunt of the Itoae. 
 
 A ROSE once pass'd within 
 
 A garden, April-green, 
 In her loneness, in her loneness, 
 And the fairer for that oneness. 
 
 A white rose, delicate, 
 
 On a tall bough and straight, 
 Early comer, April comer, 
 Never waiting for the summer ; 
 
 Whose pretty gestes did win 
 
 South winds to let her in, 
 In her loneness, in her loneness , 
 All the fairer for that oneness. 
 
 261 
 
262 LAY OF THE ROSE. 
 
 " For if I wait," said she, 
 
 " Till times for roses be, 
 For the musk rose, and the moss rose, 
 Royal red and maiden blush rose, 
 
 " What glory then for me, 
 
 In such a company ? 
 Roses plenty, roses plenty, 
 And one nightingale for twenty ! 
 
 < Nay, let me in," said she, 
 
 *t Before the rest are free, 
 In my loneness, in my loneness, 
 All the fairer for that oneness. 
 
 " For I would lonely stand, 
 
 Uplifting my white hand, 
 On a mission, on a mission, 
 To declare the coming vision. 
 
 " See mine, a holy heart, 
 
 To high ends set apart, 
 All unmated, all unmated, 
 Because so consecrated. 
 
LAY OF THE BOSS. 253 
 
 " Upon which lifted sign, 
 
 What worship will be mine ! 
 What addressing, what caressing, 
 What thanks, and praise and blessing ! 
 
 " A wind-like joy will rush 
 
 Through every tree and bush, 
 Bending softly in affection, 
 And spontaneous benediction. 
 
 " Insects, that only may 
 
 Live in a sunbright ray, 
 To my whiteness, to my whiteness 
 Shall be drawn, as to a brightness. 
 
 And every moth and bee 
 
 Shall near me reverently, 
 Wheeling round me, wheeling o'er me 
 Coronals of motioned glory. 
 
 I ween the very skies 
 
 Will look down in surprise, 
 When low on earth they see me, 
 With my cloudy aspect dreamy. 
 22 
 
254 LAY OF THE BOSS. 
 
 " E'en nightingales shall flee 
 Their woods for love of me, 
 Singing sadly all the suntide, 
 Never waiting for the moontide ! 
 
 " Three larks shall leave a cloud, 
 To my whiter beauty vow'd, 
 Singing gladly all the moontide 
 Never waiting for the suntide , 
 
 So praying did she win 
 South winds to let her in, 
 In her loneness, in her loneness, 
 And the fairer for that oneness. 
 
 But out, alas, for her ! 
 
 No thing did minister 
 To her praises, to her praises, 
 More than might unto a daisy's. 
 
 No tree nor bush was seen 
 To boast a perfect green, 
 Scarcely having, scarcely having 
 One leaf broad enow for waving. 
 
LAY OP THE ROSE. 266 
 
 The little flies did crawl 
 
 Along the southern wall, 
 Faintly shifting, faintly shifting 
 Wings scarce strong enow for lifting. 
 
 The nightingale did please 
 
 To loiter beyond seas, 
 Guess him in the happy islands, 
 Hearing music from the silence. 
 
 The lark too high or low, 
 
 Did haply miss her so 
 With his crest down in the gorses, 
 And his song in the star-courses 1 
 
 Only the bee, forsooth, 
 Came in th^ place of both 
 Doing honour, doing honour, 
 To the honey-dews upon her. 
 
 The skies look'd coldl} down 
 
 As on a royal crown ; 
 Then, drop by drop, at leisure, 
 Began to rain for pleasure. 
 
266 LAY OP THE BOSK. 
 
 Whereat the earth did seem 
 
 To waken from a dream, 
 Winter frozen, winter frozen, 
 Her anguish eyes unclosing. 
 
 Said to the rose, a Ha, Snow ! 
 
 And art thou fallen so ? 
 Thou who wert enthroned stately 
 Along my mountains lately. 
 
 ( Holla, thou world-wide snow 
 
 And art thou wasted so ? 
 With a little bough to catch thee 
 And a little bee to watch thee ?" 
 
 Poor rose, to be misknown ! 
 
 Would she had ne'er been blown, 
 In her loneness, in her loneness, 
 All the the sadder for that oneness. 
 
 Some words she tried to say, 
 
 Some sigh ah, well away ! 
 But the passion did o'ercome her, 
 And the fair frail leaves dropp'd from her* 
 
LAY 01 THE R08B. 257 
 
 Dropp'd from her, fair and mute, 
 
 Close to a poet's foot, 
 Who beheld them, smiling lowly, 
 As at something sad and holy ; 
 
 Said, "Verily and thus, 
 
 So chanceth e'er with us, 
 Poets, ringing sweetest snatches, 
 While deaf did men keep the watches 
 
 " Saunting to come before 
 
 Our own age evermore, 
 In a loneness, in a loneness, 
 And the nobler for that oneness 
 
 " But if alone we be 
 
 Where is our empiry ? 
 And if none can reach our stature 
 Who will mate our lofty nature ? 
 
 " What bell will yield a tone 
 
 Saving in the air alone ? 
 If no brazen clapper bringing, 
 Who can bear the chimed ringing 
 
 22* 
 
258 LAT OF THE BOSK. 
 
 " What angel but would seem 
 
 To sensual eyes glent-dim ? 
 And without assimilation, 
 Vain is interpenetration ! 
 
 Alas ! what can we do, 
 
 The rose and poet too, 
 Who both antedate our mission 
 In an unprepared season ? 
 
 (( Drop leaf be silent song 
 
 Cold things we came among ! 
 We must warm them, we must warm them 
 Ere we even hope to charm them. 
 
 " Howbeit," here his face 
 
 Highten'd around the place, 
 So to mark the outward turning 
 Of his spirit's inward burning. 
 
 " Something it is to hold 
 
 In God's worlds manifold. 
 First reveal'd to creatures duty, 
 A new form of His mild beauty. 
 
LAY OF THE HOSE. 259 
 
 " Whether that form respect 
 ^The sense or intellect, 
 Holy rest in soul or pleasance, 
 The chief Beauty's sign of presence. 
 
 " Holy in me and thee, 
 
 Rose fallen from the tree, 
 Though the world stand dumb around us, 
 All unahle to expound us. 
 
 Though none us deign' to bless, 
 Blessed are we natheless ; 
 Blessed age and consecrated 
 In that, Rose, we were created ! 
 
 " Oh, shame to poet's lays, 
 Sung for the dole of praise 
 
 Hoarsely sung upon the highway, 
 
 With an * obolum da mihi /' 
 
 " Shame ! shame to poet's soul, 
 
 Pining for such a dole, 
 When heaven-called to inherit 
 The high throne of his own spirit ! 
 
260 LAY OF THE ROSE. 
 
 " Sit still upon your thrones, 
 O ye poetic ones ! 
 And if, sooth, the world decry you, 
 
 Why, let that world pass by you ! 
 
 
 
 66 Ye to yourselves suffice, 
 
 Without its flatteries ; 
 Self-contentedly approve you 
 Unto Him who sits above you. 
 
 " In prayers that upward mount, 
 
 Like to a sunned fount, 
 And, in gushing back upon you, 
 Bring the rnusic they have won you. 
 
 " In thanks for all the good 
 
 By poets understood 
 For the sound of seraphs moving 
 Through the hidden depths of loving ! 
 
 " For sights of things away, 
 Through fissures of the clay, 
 Promised things, which shall be given 
 And sung ever up in heaven ! 
 
LAY OF THE BOSK. 261 
 
 For life, so lonely vain, 
 
 For death, which breaks the chain 
 For this sense of present sweetness, 
 And this yearning to completeness !" 
 
 ON A FADED VIOLET. 
 
 BY SHELLEY. 
 
 THE odor from the flower is gone 
 
 Which, like thy kisses, breathed on me ; 
 
 The color from the flower is flown, 
 Which glow'd of thee, and only thee 1 
 
 A shrivel'd, lifeless, vacant form, 
 It lies on my abandon'd breast, 
 
 And mocks the heart, which yet is warm. 
 With cold and silent rest. 
 
 I weep my tears revive it not ! 
 
 I sigh it breathes no more on me ; 
 Its mute and uncomplaining lot 
 
 Is such as 'mine should be. 
 
HARE-BELL. 
 
 SUBMISSION. 
 BY MABIE ROSEAU. 
 
 The dainty little Hare-bell 
 Is pleasant to the sight, 
 
 With its tiny azure petals, 
 And stem so long and slight 
 
 A timid, fearful flow'ret, 
 It trembleth at the breeze, 
 
 With a constant shiv'ring motion 
 Like the leaves of Aspen trees. 
 
 So rery frail and feeble 
 Appears its tender form, 
 
 It scarce seems fit to buffet 
 With a single raging storm. 
 262 
 
HARE-BELL. 263 
 
 But when the whirl-wind soundeth 
 A strong tempestuous blast, 
 
 Its head it gently boweth 
 
 'Till the angry wind hath past. 
 
 Then from the stormy conflict, 
 With winning, quiet grace, 
 
 Unharmed, once more it riseth 
 To its own accustomed place. 
 
 For He, to whom it oweth 
 
 The beauty of its form, 
 Hath in His goodness given 
 
 The strength to meet the storm. 
 
 I love this little flowret, 
 And in its yielding grace, 
 
 Oft in my thoughtful fancy 
 Imagine I can trace 
 
 Resemblance to a dear one, 
 
 Who hath in real life, 
 Bowed with such calm submission 
 
 To storms of angry strife. 
 
264 HARE-BELL. 
 
 Tho' feeble, frail and helpless, 
 God makes her strong to bear 
 
 The storms of dark affliction, 
 And weight of weary care. 
 
 THE FORGET ME NOT. 
 
 NOT on the mountain's shelving side, 
 
 Nor in the cultivated ground, 
 Nor in the garden's painted pride, 
 
 The flower I seek is found. 
 
 Where Time on sorrow's page of gloom 
 
 Has fix'd its envious lot, 
 Or swept the record from the tomb, 
 
 It says, Forget-me-not. 
 
 And this is still the loveliest flower. 
 
 The fairest of the fair, 
 Of all that deck my lady's bower, 
 
 Or bind her floating hair. 
 
LOVE SHUT OUT OF THE FLOWER GARDEN. 
 
 BY MBS. IAWBENCE. 
 
 CLOSE the porch and bar the door ! 
 Onward may thy foot-steps stray : 
 
 Never more an idle hour, 
 
 Bend thou here thy treacherous way. 
 
 HEART'S-EASE tremble all around, 
 As thy wild breath wanders by ; 
 
 ROSES, to thy bosom bound; 
 
 Yield their latest, sweetest sigh. 
 
 Cruel boy ! abjured and scorned, 
 Hear thy blushing trophies glow ; 
 
 LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING, all around 
 Speed thee ! dangerous vagrant go ! 
 
 Where yon fountain sparkles clear, 
 Low beneath its willowy shade, 
 
 Nurslings of one parent bora, 
 LOVE-AND-IDLENESS have played. 
 23 265 
 
266 LOVE SHUT OUT OF THE FLOWER GARDEN. 
 
 Where yon wild ROSE flaunts her flowers, 
 (Once its garlands bound my hair) 
 
 Changed for me those sunny hours, 
 Thou thy thorns hast planted thee. 
 
 Frailest WOODBINE, all untwined, 
 Wanders here, forlorn and free ; 
 
 Emblem of the maiden's mind, 
 Who has placed her trust in thee. 
 
 How within my calm retreat, 
 Could thy truant footsteps stray? 
 
 Bowed beneath thy breath's control, 
 Did my steadiest fence give way. 
 
 PASSION'S FLOWERS are past and gone ; 
 
 Still around one lovely spot, 
 All her turquoise gems unchanged, 
 
 Blooms the meek FORGET-ME-NOT. 
 
 Once beneath thy fickle power, 
 Glowed the hour or gloomed the day ; 
 
 Now my chastened bosom owns 
 
 Wisdom's rule and Reason's sway. * 
 
LOVE SHUT OUT OP THE FLOWER GARlJEN. 267 
 
 Leave me to my new found peace ; 
 
 Leave me to my late repose : 
 Here at length my troubles cease 
 
 Here my heart forgets its woes 
 
 Joy, of purer influence born, 
 
 Hope of loftier aim I know 
 Now thy stormy power I scorn ; 
 
 Leave me, child ! thou need'st must go* 
 
 Art thou fled without a word ? 
 
 Closed the porch and barred the door : 
 Are thy loved companions gone ? 
 
 Fair-haired youth had flown before. 
 
 Must I from each idol part ; 
 
 To each transport bid adieu, 
 Which around my youthful heart 
 
 Once its blest delusions threw ? 
 
 Yet sweet Love ! with tears and grief, 
 
 I thy wings receding see ; 
 Sorrow still on parting waits, 
 
 Hqpe and joy retire with thee ! 
 

 THE CAPTIVE AND THE FLOWERS. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE. 
 
 A FLOWER that's wondrous fair, I know, 
 
 My bosom holds it dear ; 
 To seek that flower I long to go, 
 
 Bui am imprison'd here. 
 'Tis no light grief oppresses me; 
 For in the days my steps were free, 
 
 I had it always near. 
 Far round the tower I send mine eye, 
 
 The tower so steep and tall ; 
 But nowhere can the flower descry 
 
 From this high castle wall ; 
 And him who'll bring me my desire 
 Or be he knight, or be he squire, 
 
 My dearest friend I'll call. 
 268 
 
THE CAPTIVE AND THE FLOWERS. 269 
 
 My blossoms near thee I disclose, 
 And hear thy wretched plight ; 
 
 Thou meanest me, no doubt, the rose, 
 Thou noble, hapless knight. 
 
 A lofty mind in thee is seen, 
 
 And in thy bosom reigns the queen 
 Of flowers, as is her right. 
 
 Thy crimson bud I duly prize 
 
 In outer robe of green ; 
 For this thou'rt dear in maiden's eyes, 
 
 As gold and jewels' sheen. 
 Thy wreath adorns the fairest brow, 
 And yet the flower it is not thou, 
 
 Whom my still wishes mean. 
 
 The little rose has cause for pride, 
 And upwards aye will soar ; 
 
 Yet am I held by many a bride 
 The rose's wreath before. 
 23* 
 
270 rHE CAPTIVE AND THE FLOWERS. 
 
 And bears thy bosom faithfully, 
 And art thou true, and pure as I, 
 Thou'lt f>rize the lily more. 
 
 I call myself both chaste and pure, 
 
 And pure from passions low : 
 And yet these walls my limbs immure 
 
 In loneliness and woe. 
 Though thou dost seem, in white array'd, 
 Like many a pure and beauteous maid, 
 
 One dearer thing I know. 
 
 PINK. 
 
 And dearer T, the pink, must be, './ 
 And me thou sure dost choose 
 
 O else the gard'ner ne'er for me 
 Such watchful care would use ; 
 
 A crowd of leaves enriching bloom ! 
 
 And mine through life the sweet perfume, 
 And all the thousand hues. 
 
THE CAPTIVE AND THE TLOWEBB. 271 
 
 The pink can no one justly slight, 
 The gard'ner's favorite flower; 
 
 He sets it now beneath the light, 
 Now shields it from its power. 
 
 Yet 'tis not pomp, who o'er the rest 
 
 In splendor shines, can make me blest ; 
 It is a still, small flower. 
 
 I stand conceal'd, and bending low, 
 And do not love to speak ; 
 
 Yet will I, as 'tis fitting now, 
 My wonted silence break. 
 
 For if 'tis I, thou gallant man, 
 
 Thy heart desires, thine, if I can, 
 My perfumes all I'll make. 
 
 The violet 1 esteem indeed, 
 So modest and so kind ; 
 
272 THE CAPTIVE AND THE FLOWERS. 
 
 Its fragrance sweet yet more I need, 
 
 To soothe mine anguish'd mind. 
 To you the truth will I confess ; 
 Here, 'mid this rocky dreariness, 
 
 My love I ne'er shall find. 
 The truest wife by yonder brook 
 
 Will roam the mournful day, 
 And hither cast the anxious look, 
 
 Long as immured I stay. 
 Whene'er she breaks a small blue flower 
 And says, < c Forget me not !" the power 
 
 I feel, though far away. 
 Yes, e'en though far, I feel its might, 
 
 For true love joins us twain, 
 And therefore 'mid the dungeon's night 
 
 I still in life remain. 
 And sinks my heart at my hard lot, 
 I but exclaim, " Forget me not !" 
 
 And straight new life regain. 
 
" 
 
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 9Jan'57CRX 
 

 438924 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY