Because your little tiny nose,
Turns up so pert and funny;
Because I know you choose your beaux
More for their mirth than money;
Because your eyes are deep and blue,—
Your fingers long and rosy;
Because a little maid like you
Would make one’s home so cozy;
Because, I think, (I’m just so weak,)
That some of these fine morrows
You’ll listen while you hear me speak
My story, and my sorrows!
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast;
Theirs buxom health, of rosy hue;
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly the approach of morn.
Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
No care beyond to-day.
Yet see how all around them wait,
The ministers of human fate,
And black misfortune’s baleful train,
Ah! show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murderous band!
Ah, tell them they are men!
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!
Ice-Plant.... Frigidity.
Thou strangely beauteous one?
Fairer than fairest work of art,
Yet cold as sculptured stone!
Thou art in Friendship’s bright domain
A flower that yields no fruit;
And Love declares thy beauty vain;—
Of fragrance destitute!
His rimy foliage, and his candied stems.
Solid and fixed by cold,
So in warm seasons love doth loosely flow;
Frost only can it hold;
Your coldness and disdain
Does the sweet course restrain.
Cactus.... Ardent Love.
The flower of the Cactus is chosen to signify ardent love, because of the glowing hues of the flower itself, and the heat of the climate in which the plant grows to the greatest size. The gorgeousness of the flower of the Cactus needs no eulogy. No fitter emblem could have been selected to represent the passion of love in its full flame.
The evening spreads her robes of light,
And, like a young and timid bride,
Sits blushing in the arms of night:
And when the moon’s sweet crescent springs
In light o’er heaven’s deep waveless sea,
And stars are forth like blessed things,
I think of thee—I think of thee.
And all was blackness like the sky before a coming storm,
Thy beaming smile and words of love, thy heart of kindness free,
Illumed my path, then cheered my soul, and bade its sorrows flee.
Thou’rt like a star—when sad and lone I wander forth to view
The lamps of night, beneath their rays my spirit’s nerved anew,
And thus I love to gaze on thee, and then I think thou’st power
To mix the cup of joy for me, even in life’s darkest hour.
Thou’rt like a star—whene’er my eye is upward turned to gaze
Upon those orbs, I mark with awe their clear celestial blaze;
And then thou seem’st so pure, so high, so beautifully bright,
I almost feel as if it were an angel met my sight.
That burns with love’s delusions, ever dreams,
Dreading its losses. It for ever makes
A gloomy shadow gather in the skies,
And clouds the day; and looking far beyond
The glory in its gaze, it sadly sees
Countless privations, and far-coming storms,
Shrinking from what it conjures.
The hardest steel in tract of time doth tear;
And drizzling drops, that often do redound,
Firmest flint doth in continuance wear:
Yet cannot I, with many a dropping tear,
And long entreaty, soften her hard heart,
That she will once vouchsafe my plaint to hear,
Or look with pity on my painful smart:
But when I plead, she bids me play my part;
And when I weep, she says tears are but water;
And when I sigh, she says I know the art;
And when I wail, she turns herself to laughter;
So do I weep and wail, and plead in vain,
While she as steel and flint doth still remain.
Aloe.... Grief.
The Aloe is attached to the soil by very feeble roots; it delights to grow in the wilderness, and its taste is extremely bitter. Thus grief separates us from earthly things, and fills the heart with bitterness. These magnificent and monstrous plants are found in barbarous Africa: they grow upon rocks, in dry sand under a burning atmosphere. Some have leaves six feet long, and armed with long spires. From the centre of these leaves shoots up a slender stem covered with flowers.
Or, if I must wander, guide me:
Let me take thy hand in mine,
Cold alike are mine and thine.
Think not, Sorrow, that I hate thee,—
Think not I am frightened at thee,—
Thou art come for some good end;
I will treat thee as a friend.
Silence and solitude and tears;
The memory of a broken vow,
My blighted hopes, my wasted years!
It may be time has good in store for me;
It may be that my heart will find relief
From sources now unknown. Futurity
May bear within its folds some hidden spring
From which will issue blessed streams; and yet
Whate’er of joy the coming year may bring,
The past—the past—I never can forget.
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, of epitaphs:
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let’s choose executors, and talk of wills;
And yet not so—for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies in the ground?
Wormwood. ... Absence.
Wormwood is the bitterest of plants; and absence, according to La Fontaine, is the worst of evils. Those in whose anxious breasts the “flame divine” is burning, will agree with the French author in his assertion. To be absent from one we love is to carry a vacant chamber in the heart, which naught else can fill.
And let her fondly lead thee o’er
The scenes that thou hast past before,
To absent friends and days gone by,—
Then should these meet thy pensive eye,
A true memento may they be
Of one whose bosom owes to thee
So many hours enjoyed in gladness,
That else perhaps had passed in sadness,
And many a golden dream of joy,
Untarnished and without alloy.
Oh, still my fervent prayer will be,
“Heaven’s choicest blessings rest on thee.”
How can the wimplin burnie glide?
Or flowers adorn the ingle side?
Or birdies deign
The woods, and streams, and vales to chide?
Eliza’s gane!
Is all bare walls; nothing remains in it
But dust and feathers.
No absence can subsist with loves
That do partake of fair perfection;
Since, in the darkest night, they may,
By love’s quick motion, find a way
To see each other in reflection.
Violet.... Modest Worth.
The Violet has always been a favourite theme of admiration among visitors of Parnassus. Its quiet beauty and love of retired spots have ever made it the emblem of true worth that shrinks from parade. It is one of the first children of spring, and awakens pleasing emotions in the breast of the lover of the beautiful, as he strolls through the meadows in the season of joy. Ion, the Greek name of this flower, is traced by some etymologists to Ia, the daughter of Midas, who was betrothed to Atys, and changed by Diana into a Violet, to hide her from Apollo.
Is like the Violet flower,
That lifts its modest head apart
In some sequestered bower.
Who, patient, waits to be admired,
Though overlooked, perhaps, a while
Her modest worth, her modest smile,—
Oh, she will find, or soon, or late,
A noble, fond, and faithful mate,
Who, when the spring of life is gone,
And all its blooming flowers are flown,
Will bless old Time, who left behind
The graces of a virtuous mind.
Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there’s a sun that sets,
Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are Violets,
They will have a place in story:
There’s a flower that shall be mine,
’Tis the little Celandine.
Eyes of some men travel far
For the finding of a star;
Up and down the heavens they go,
Men that keep a mighty rout!
I’m as great as they, I trow,
Since the day I found thee out,
Little flower!—I’ll make a stir,
Like a great astronomer.
Modest, yet withal an elf,
Bold, and lavish of thyself,
Since we needs must first have met
I have seen thee, high and low,
Thirty years or more, and yet
’Twas a face I did not know:
Thou hast now, go where I may,
Fifty greetings in a day.
Ere a leaf is on the bush,
In the time before the thrush
Has a thought about its nest,
Thou wilt come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless prodigal;
Telling tales about the sun,
When there’s little warmth or none.
Shakspeare regarded the Violet as the emblem of constancy, as the following occurs in one of his sonnets:—
Where birchen boughs with hazles mingle,
May boast herself the fairest flower,
In glen, or copse, or forest dingle.
Sheltered from boisterous wind and storm,
We Violets lie:
With each small eye
Closely shut while the cold goes by.
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;
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 where Violets grow.
Half hidden in the grass; and crowds go by
And see them not, unless some curious eye
Unto their hiding-place by chance is led.
I often pass that way, and look on them,
And love them more and more. I know not why
My heart doth love such humble things; but I
Esteem them more than robe or diadem
Of haughty kings. A babe, or bird, or flower
Hath o’er the soul a most despotic power.
The tearful eye of infancy oppressed—
A flower down-trodden by the foot of spite—
Awaken sighs of sorrow in the breast,
Or nerve the arm to vindicate their right.
Lavender.... Distrust.
It was anciently believed that the asp, a dangerous species of viper, made Lavender its habitual place of abode, for which reason that plant was approached with extreme caution. The Romans used it largely in their baths, from whence its name is derived.
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.
Where doubt there truth is—’tis her shadow.
I wooed and won thee for my bride,
I little thought that thou couldst be
Estranged as now thou art from me!
Pansy.... Think of me.
The Pansy, or Heart’s-ease, is a beautiful variety of the Violet, differing from it in the diversity of its colours. In fragrance it is inferior to the Violet. Pansy is an old English corruption of the French Pensée.
The bee is humming in the air,
The stream is singing in the light,
The May-buds never looked more fair;
Blue is the sky, no rain to-day:
Get up, it has been light for hours,
And we have not begun to play,
Nor have we gathered any flowers.
Time, who looked on, each accent caught,
And said, “He is too young for thought.”
Oh, what a while the night is coming!
I never saw the sun so late,
No heard the bee at this time humming!
I thought the flowers an hour ago
Had closed their bells and sunk to rest:
How slowly flies that hooded crow!
How light it is along the west!
Said Time, “He yet hath to be taught
That I oft move too quick for thought.”
Not love? for that brings only tears—
Nor friendship? no, I was forsaken!
Pleasure I have not known for years:
The future I would not foresee,
I know too much from what is past,
No happiness is there for me,
And troubles ever come too fast.
Said Time, “No comfort have I brought,
The past to him’s one painful thought.”
The Daisies dimmer than of old;
There’s fewer blossoms on the bough,
The Hawthorn buds look gray and cold;
The Pansies wore another dye
When I was young—when I was young!
There’s not that blue about the sky
Which every way in those days hung.
There’s nothing now looks as it “ought.”
Said Time, “The change is in thy thought.”
To hearts that own our nature’s common lot;
Thou, styled by sportive Fancy’s better feeling
A Thought, the Heart’s-Ease, and Forget-me-not.
Daisy.... Innocence.
Shakspeare speaks of the Daisy as the flower
and succeeding poets have generally used it as the image of that pure quality. Fable informs us that the Daisy owes its origin to Belides, one of the Dryads, who were supposed to preside over meadows and pastures. While dancing on the turf with Ephigeus, whose suit she encouraged, she attracted the admiration of Vertumnus, the deity who presided over orchards; and, to escape from him, she was transformed into the humble flower, the Latin name of which is Bellis. The ancient English name of the flower was Day’s Eye, of which Daisy is a corruption. In Ossian’s poems, the Daisy is called the flower of the new-born—most expressive of innocence.
Pure as in childhood’s hours;
And all her thoughts are poetry,
And all her words are flowers.
When meadows green and woodlands wild
Were strewn with flowers, in sweet spring-time,
And everywhere the Daisies smiled.
When undisturbed the ring-doves cooed,
While lovers sang each other’s praises,
As in embowered lanes they wooed,
Or on some bank white o’er with Daisies:
While Love went by with muffled feet,
Singing, “The Daisies they are sweet.”
Unfettered then he roamed abroad,
And as he willed it past the hours—
Now lingering idly by the road,
Now loitering by the wayside flowers;
For what cared he about the morrow?
Too young to sigh, too old to fear—
No time had he to think of sorrow,
Who found the Daisies everywhere;
Still sang he, through each green retreat,
“The Daisies they are very sweet.”
With many a maiden did he dally,
Like a glad brook that turns away—
Here in, there out, across the valley,
With every pebble stops to play;
Taking no note of space nor time,
Through flowers, the banks adorning,
Still rolling on, with silver chime,
In star-clad night and golden morning.
So went Love on, through cold and heat,
Singing, “The Daisy’s ever sweet.”
’Twas then the flowers were haunted
With fairy forms and lovely things,
Whose beauty elder bards have chanted,
And how they lived in crystal springs,
And swang upon the honied bells;
In meadows danced round dark green mazes,
Strewed flowers around the holy wells,
But never trampled on the Daisies.
They spared the star that lit their feet,
The Daisy was so very sweet.
Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly shades his few gray hairs;
Spring cannot shun thee;
Whole summer fields are thine by right,
And autumn, melancholy wight,
Doth in thy crimson head delight,
When rains are on thee.
In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet’st the traveller in the lane;
If welcomed once thou count’st it gain,
Thou art not daunted;
Nor car’st if thou be set at naught:
And oft alone in nooks remote
We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.
The beauty of the skies,
Or aught that in life’s valley bears
The hues of paradise;
I cannot look upon a star,
Or cloud that seems a seraph’s car,
Or any form of purity—
Unmingled with a dream of thee.
A golden tuft within a silver crown;
Faire fell that dainty flower! and may there be
No shepherd graced that doth not honour thee.
With silver crest and golden eye,
That welcomes every changing hour,
And weathers every sky.
Yet it will wipe their eyes again, and make
Their faces whiter with their tears. Innocence
Concealed is the stolen pleasure of the gods,
Which never ends in shame, as that of men
Doth oftentimes do; but like the sun breaks forth,
When it hath gratified another world;
And to our unexpecting eyes appears
More glorious through its late obscurity.
Periwinkle.... Tender Recollections.
In France, the Periwinkle has been adopted as the emblem of the pleasures of memory and sincere friendship, probably in allusion to Rousseau’s recollection of his friend, Madame de Warens, occasioned, after a lapse of thirty years, by the sight of this flower, which they together had admired. This plant is deeply rooted in the soil which it adorns. It throws out its shoots on all sides to clasp the earth, and covers it with flowers, which reflect the hue of heaven. Thus our first affections, warm, pure, and artless, seem to be of heavenly origin.
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is delivered
To pain,—it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:
They may crush, but they shall not contemn;
They may torture, but shall not subdue me,—
’Tis of thee that I think, not of them.
Which throws in winter’s lap the spring-tide flower:
I love to dream of days my childhood knew,
When, with the sister of my heart, time flew
On wings of innocence and hope! dear hours,
When joy sprang up about our path, like flowers!
Like carpet of Damascus’ loom,
Pranks with bright blue the tissue wove
Of verdant foliage: and above
With milk-white flowers, whence soon shall swell
Red fruitage, to the taste and smell
Pleasant alike, the Strawberry weaves
Its coronets of three-fold leaves
In mazes through the sloping wood.
Under the cottage eaves.
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter.
Sweet-Brier, or Eglantine.... Poetry.
The Eglantine is the poet’s flower. In the floral games, it was the prize for the best composition on the charms of study and eloquence. Though its flowers are most beautiful in hue, their fragrance is their more valuable quality. In like manner, the charms of poetry and eloquence should be considered superior to those of appearance.
May bend and worship while he woos;
To him she is a thing divine,
The inspiration of his line,
His loved one, and his muse.
If to his song the echo rings
Of fame—’tis woman’s voice he hears;
If ever from his lyre’s proud strings
Flow sounds, like rush of angel wings,
’Tis that she listens, while he sings,
With blended smiles and tears.
Fresh from his solitude, the child of dreams,
His heart upon his lips he seeks the world,
To find him fame and fortune, as if life
Were like a fairy tale. His song has led
The way before him; flatteries fill his ear,
His presence courted, and his words are caught;
And he seems happy in so many friends.
What marvel if he somewhat overrate
His talents and his state? These scenes soon change.
The vain, who sought to mix their name with his;
The curious, who but live for some new sight;
The idle—all these have been gratified,
And now neglect stings even more than scorn.
Lilac.... First Emotions of Love.
The freshness of the verdure of the Lilac; the flexibility of its branches; the profusion of its flowers; their transitory beauty and their soft hues,—all remind us of those emotions which embellish beauty, and throw such a light around our youthful hours. It is said that Van Spaendonc himself threw down his pencil on viewing a group of Lilacs. Nature seems to have delighted in creating its delicate clusters, which astonish by their beauty and variety. The fragrance of the flowers is even more gratifying than their beauty.