Whether the violets should excel, Or she, in sweetest scent. Poor girls, she fell on you, Her blows did make ye blue. But others say that poor Ianthis, pursued by Apollo, appealed to Artemis to destroy her fatal beauty, and that the goddess in pity painted her face blue! Discolored thus an humbler state she proved Less fair, but by the goddess more beloved! Next the daisy. Clare, in a pretty poem, which commences, Welcome, old comrade! peeping once again, Our meeting 'minds me of a pleasant hour; and closes, And there can be no doubt, reading his verses and noting how he again and again recurs to all the various moods in which the daisy has met him, and in all of them "repaired his heart with gladness," that the poet's affection for "the sweet flower" was sincere and deeply seated. Methinks that there abides in thee Some concord with humanity, The forest through. In one of his poems to "Nature's favorite," he promises that it shall by his verse regain "its long-lost praise;" and certainly no other poet has done so much for any other flower. Even an elegy on the death of a dear friend at sea is addressed to the daisy, the Then like old mates, or two who've neigh- poet's lament being that the friend can bors been, We'll part, in hopes to meet another year; strikes the note of many poets' addresses to the "wee, modest, crimsontippèd flower." Specially noteworthy is the welcome of that genial, truthful poet, Mackay, whose verses, to my thinking, breathe, excepting of course the greater poets, more than any other writer the sweet spirit of nature and the pure love of it. The poem opens : My heart is full of joy to-day, The air hath music in it; Once more I roam the wild-wood way, And prize the passing minute; The balms of heaven are on my cheek, My feet in meadow mazes; Let me alone, and I will speak My blessings on the daisies. I have not seen for half a year, Sore pent in cares and labors, These gems of earth, these blossoms dear, These free and gladsome neighbors; They smile upon me as of old, Through memory's shifting phases; My blessings on your white and gold, Ye well beloved daisies. Wordsworth has several poems addressed to the daisy, and confesses a debt of greater gratitude to it for its "happy, genial influence" than to any other flower: Thou art indeed by many a claim, never return to see his beloved flower bloom again! Chaucer's name, "the eie of daye," gives a very dainty con ceit: Shut not so soon; the dull-eyed night To make a seizure on the light, No marigolds yet closèd are, No shadows great appear, Stay but till my Julia close Her life-begetting eye; No flower when met with abroad recalls memories of England with more vivid suddenness than the daisy. I remember very well that, stepping ashore in New Zealand, my eye fell on daisies among the turf, and the force and rapidity with which the home associations of the little flower then started up in my mind created an impression so strong that I can still, after the lapse of years, recall it at will. There are no daisies in Australia, and their unexpected appearance in the grass at Invercargill sent the blood back to my heart for an instant; and I can remember very well the obvious surprise of my companions, all New Zealanders, at my tone of voice and attitude on seeing the daisies. Many note- The lily's height bespoke command, She seemed designed for Flora's hand, Between Herrick's death and Wordsworth's birth there is an interval of a century, and each was a master-garAnd long before Cowper sang, the dener, so that taking two such authornoble blossom had been known as the ities we make assurance doubly sure. sceptre-flower of Juno, a greater god-Besides, Milton's "nature" is never dess than Venus of the rose. Indeed, very satisfactory. all time through, it has held almost In old-fashioned gardens a sweetbriar equal place with its rival. If one king hedge is to this day a frequent feature, instituted an Order of the Rose, another and it is worth noting that several poets, created the Order of the Lily, and each commencing with Chaucer, whose is set upon the battle-standard of nahegge with sicamore was set and egtions. It is, like the rose, a saint's-day laterre," employ the plant as a fence flower, and Our Lady of the Lily is or screen. What is more odd, perhaps, one of the titles of the Virgin. And is the combination with the sweetbriar who does not know that in every coun- of the sycamore, a plant but seldom try the woman who is called "the lily " seen in hedges nowadays, and not at all must be passing beautiful? For every suitable for the purpose. Now the Fair Rosamond you shall find a Lily" sycamore" of England is really a Maid of Astolat. 66 maple, and not the Sycamoros, and a smaller variety of maple is very comNext to these, in order of the honors monly used for hedges and for cutting conferred, come the primrose, the rose-out into arbors on account of its rapid growth, very twiggy nature, and close foliage:— Were it not mary, and the eglantine. From this bleeding hand of mine, So says Herrick to a maid, and we may part. In the "Hesperides" its use at How sweet thy modest, unaffected pride Glows on the sunny bank and wood's warm side! weddings My wooing's o'er: now my wedding's near, When gloves are giving, gilded be you there; And where thy fairy flowers in groups are found The schoolboy roams enchantedly along, and its double use, whether at wedding Plucking the fairest with a rude delight ; or funeral, Grow for two ends, it matters not at all are briefly set forth; while the opening of Keats's address "To the Herb Rosemary," with characteristic delight in the melancholy, invites the flower to accompany the poet to his death, and himself carries to his own burial the sprigs which it was the custom for the mourners to carry. While the meek shepherd stops his simple welcome news of sweet returning Spring. And yet with all the gladness it brings, the "rathe primrose that forsaken dies is eminently a sad flower. Herrick has them born weeping: Thus things of greatest, so of meanest worth, Sweet-scented flower! who art wont to Conceived with grief are, and with tears bloom On January's front severe, And o'er the wint'ry desert drear Come, thou shalt form my nosegay now, And as I twine the mournful wreath, And sweet the strain shall be, and long Come, funeral flower! who lov'st to dwell Come, press my lips, and lie with me And we will sleep a pleasant sleep, So peaceful and so deep. To the primrose there is no end. As in nature, the sweet flower overspreads the poets' pages, careless of its company, always winsome, always welcome. Clare most delightfully in one short poem says nearly all there is to say: Welcome, pale primrose! Starting up be tween Dead matted leaves of ash and oak that strew The every lawn, the wood and spinney through, 'Mid creeping moss and ivy's darker green : How much thy presence beautifies the ground! brought forth. The flowers, still faithful to their stems, The stems are faithful to the root In every fibre true. Close clings to earth the living rock, Though threat'ning still to fall: The earth is constant to her spheres: And God upholds it all! But the poets, as a rule, accept the primrose from, no doubt, the paleness of its color and fragility of petal – as an emblem of transcience and a sad, short life. Says Milton, "Soft, silken primrose fading timelessly." They are always murdering it with untimely frost: Rash floweret! oft betrayed, By summer-seeming days, to venture forth Thy tender form, the killing northern blast Will wrap thee lifeless in a hoar-frost shroud. Not so, Mr. Grahame. The primrose may be rash, but it is very hardy, and it cares no more for northern blasts or hoar-frost than the English boys and girls who rejoice in its coming, and | Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend prize it above all the posies of the Like an unbidden guest. So welcome as a friend Whose zeal outrides his promise. changing year. As a matter of fact, But curiously marred by the poet sayinstead of being delicate and short-ing: lived, it is a very robust and sturdy little native with quite as long a blooming-time as most of the blossoms of Why this most infelicitous line? the wild garden, and a thoroughly British aversion to being "wrapped in by inclement skies or any shrouds other agency. It is a pity that the poets singing of this flower should have forgotten that tradition says the snowdrop was the first flower that bloomed outside Eden. It was created out of the falling snowflakes by an angel on purpose to stop Eve's heart from breaking in her great misery. Who does not know Herrick's address to the "Daffadils : " Fair daffadils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; Until the hasting day There is, however, one assailant against which the poor primrose tries in vain to flower, and that is the greenfinch. This bird has discovered, and, I believe, has taught the fact to others of the feathered race (the gardener's dread), that the young seeds of the primrose are a dainty mouthful, and it bites the flower through just at the top of the stalk, where the green calix springs. It eats no more, only that one fatal beakful, and leaves the blossom on the ground. The cowslip is but saved no doubt by its longer stem, I have known spots where the primroses covered the ground as closely as ivy, and budded abundantly, and yet not a flower could be found for picking the fancy that "daffadils" are of such after sunrise, while the blossom heads flecting beauty? They last upon the strewed the ground, each calix pinched stalk longer than many flowers, and through by the beak of the greenfinch when cut last longer still; but the and its companions at breakfast. fancy was fixed, for elsewhere, in his "Divination," he says : It is curious perhaps that none of the poets noticed the prevailing "idea" of the primrose in legend-its mystic power of treasure-finding as one of the sesames of story. take Of the seven favorites of the poets already noticed, four-the violet, primrose, daisy, and sweetbriar - are wild flowers; and the two that may next rank, "the snowdrop cold, that trembles not to kisses of the bee," and the daffodils "that take the winds of March with beauty," belong to "the garden that no man hath planted." What Has run But to the evensong; inspired the sweet singer with When a daffadil I see, Hanging down his head towards me, quean; taken are For the rest of the flowers that can boast of special dedications, this article suffice. The tulip is cannot to task for its gaudiness, is called a Women and young warned by Cavalier poets to take warning by the rapid fading of the "painted" flower. There is nothing worth February fair maid” and “prophet quoting in these allusions, but in some of the roses " Tennyson calls the snow-volumes, scarcely perhaps so drop, and Wordsworth devotes to it a known as they should be, I find two charming sonnet, commencing: poems, one by "Langhorne," and one Lone flower, hemmed in with snows and by "Mr. B- -y," on the tulip, and 66 white as they, But hardier far, once more I see thee bend 1 Pearch's Poems. well Stay where ye will, or go, each is a finished piece of good work. The only one of the series with a pretIn the one the tulip scoffs at the myr-tily phrased conceit is to the carnation: tle; in the other, at the lily of the valley. In both the flaunting "quean" is reproved by third parties (a zephyr and a bee), and in both the sun is the cause of the proud maid's undoing : With more than usual lustre bright, course, And shone with more than summer force. The vigorous warmth, with joy confest, And so forth. The other poem runs thus: Fierce on the flower the scorching beams The curling leaves the breast disclosed; And evening came with dews so cold, The wanton beauty ceased to blow, And sought her bending leaves to fold. Those leaves, alas! no more will close; Relaxed, exhausted, sickening, pale; They left her to a parent's woes, And fled before the rising gale. None of the other "poems" need more than passing notice. Herrick has whimsical versicles on the origin of various flowers. Thus, the wall-flower was a virgin who, hasting too fast to meet her lover, fell over the garden wall and broke her neck; the marigolds were old maids who turned yellow from jealousy, and though they died, never changed color; pausies (or heart'sease), words on which he is very fond of playing : Frolic virgins once these were, And their loss in blooming years, And leave no scent behind ye; I'm sure to find ye there. But the list, if I were to make it complete, would be almost as long as a list of the flowers of a garden. Do you remember in Leigh Hunt's "Feast of the Poets," how, when the company is assembled, by some charm or other, as each took his chair There burst a most beautiful wreath in his hair. I can't tell 'em all, but the groundwork was bay, And Campbell, in his, had some oak-leaves and may: And forget-me-not Rogers; and Moore had a vine, And Shelley besides most magnificent pine Had the plant which they least touch, Humanity knows ; And Keats's had forest-tree, basil, and rose; And Southey's some buds of the tall Eastern palm; And Coleridge mandragoras mingled with balm; And Wordsworth, with all which the fieldwalk endears, The blossom that counts by its hundreds of years. In addition to these, Lytton's with his favorite jasmine and violets, Mackay's briony and bluebells, Burns and his daisies in ivy, Leigh Hunt's eglantine and poppies, Cunningham with his narcissus; while among the wreaths should surely have been the blossoms of the celandine and water-lily, may, cornflower, and lilac, and many others whom the poets individually addressed. It will be seen that I make no pretence of exploiting the Poets' Garden. I am merely a passer-by on the common road, and through the gates, and here and there where the hedge lets me see over or see through, get a peep at the pleasure-grounds within. The subject is an immense one, as beautiful |