The cream of love is in it pure and sweet:
With every charm that human nature girdles,
And every grace of gentleness replete,
The man who has a kindly heart is most
In pattern like his Lord; for where the law
Of kindness rules the heart, the virtues draw
Together in companionship, and post
Themselves around that citadel of love.
The kindly man doth always kindly prove:
He has a word of sweetness for the child—
Of pity for the poor—of sympathy
For all who mourn; and truly glad is he
When through his generous care some sorrowing face has smiled.
There’s music ever in the kindly soul,
For every deed of goodness done is like
A chord set in the heart, and joy doth strike
Upon it oft as memory doth unroll
The immortal page whereon good deeds are writ;
And Heaven gives nothing sweeter to the mind
Than memories of the acts that bless our human kind.
Ivy.... Constancy.
In Greece the altar of Hymen was enwreathed with Ivy, and a branch of it was presented to the new-married couple, as a symbol of the indissoluble knot. It was sacred to Bacchus, who is represented crowned with Ivy leaves, as well as those of the vine. It formed the crown of the Greek and Roman poets; and, in modern times, has been made the poet’s frequent image of constancy. The Ivy is attached to the earth by its own roots, and derives no nourishment from the substances to which it clings. The protector of ruins, it adorns the dilapidated walls which it holds together; it will not accept every kind of support, but its attachment ends only with its life.
Nothing is constant but a virtuous mind.
Seeks with no surer flow the far, bright sea,
Than my unchanged affections flow to thee.
Transparent as pure crystal, that the world,
Jealous of me, may see the foulest thought
My heart does hold. Where shall a woman turn
Her eyes to find out constancy?
We’ll live and love so true,
The sigh that rends thy constant heart,
Shall break thy Edwin’s too.
Its twining tendril flings;
Though fled from thence be pleasure’s smile,
It yet the fonder clings;
As lonelier still becomes the place,
The warmer is its fond embrace,
More firm its verdant rings;
As if it loved its shade to rear
O’er one devoted to despair.
Thus shall my bosom cling to thine,
Unchanged by gliding years;
Through Fortune’s rise, or her decline,
In sunshine, or in tears;
And though between us oceans roll,
And rocks divide us, still my soul
Shall feel no jealous fears:
Confiding in a heart like thine,
Love’s uncontaminated shrine.
Holly.... Foresight.
The Holly, with its scarlet berries, is the most beautiful of the evergreens that have been used for ages to adorn the churches of old England, during the Christmas season. It is an ornament to the woods, stripped bare by the rude breath of winter; its berries serve for food for the little birds that never leave us, and its foliage affords them an hospitable shelter during the cold season. Nature, by a seeming forethought, has been careful to preserve the verdure of this handsome tree all the year round, and to arm it with thorns, that it may furnish both food and protection to the innocent creatures which resort to it for shelter. It may be added, however, that from the bark of the common Holly, when fermented and washed from the woody fibres, is made the bird-lime which is used for catching small birds.
The Holly tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves,
Ordered by an intelligence so wise
As might confound the atheist’s sophistries.
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle, through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;
But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.
And moralize;
And in this wisdom of the Holly tree
Can emblems see,
Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.
Harsh and austere,
To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,
Gentle at home amid my friends I’d be,
Like the high leaves upon the Holly tree.
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I day by day
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly tree.
So bright and green,
The Holly leaves a sober hue display,
Less bright than they;
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly tree?
The thoughtless throng,
So would I seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they,
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly tree.
And where it leads, and what, while journeying,
We may meet, is Wisdom’s eager wish.
Meadow Saffron.... My best days are past.
The Meadow Saffron, or Colchicum Autumnale, springs up about the time the leaves begin to fall from the trees, and may, therefore, be said to proclaim to all nature, that the bright days of summer are past. According to Ovid, this autumnal flower owes its origin to some drops of the magic liquor prepared by Medea, to restore the aged Æson to the bloom and vigour of youth, which were spilled in the fields. As a medicine, the Colchicum is powerful, but dangerous, and must be used with caution. The poisonous quality of the plant seems to be known, as if by instinct, to all kinds of cattle. They all shun it, and in many pastures this alone will be found standing, when all other herbage has been consumed.
The sober age of manhood on?
As idly should I weep at noon
To see the blush of morning gone.
True, time will sear and blanch my brow:
Well—I shall sit with aged men,
And my good glass will tell me how
A grisly beard becomes me then.
And should no foul dishonour lie
Upon my head when I am gray,
Love yet may search my fading eye,
And smooth the path of my decay.
How dark this world would be,
If, when deceived and wounded here,
We could not fly to thee!
The friends who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes, are flown;
And he who has but tears to give,
Must weep those tears alone:
But thou wilt heal that broken heart,
Which, like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of wo.
Ascends fair Colchicum, with radiant eye,
Warms the cold bosom of the hoary year,
And lights with beauty’s blaze the dusky sphere.
My friends are dropping one by one away;
Some live in distant lands—some in the clay
Rest quietly, their mortal moments told.
And when my children gather at my knee
To worship God and sing our morning psalm,
Their rising stature whispers unto me
My life is waning towards its evening calm.
China Aster.... Variety.
The China Aster begins to blow when other flowers are scarce. It is like an afterthought of Flora’s, who smiles at leaving us. The China Aster was introduced into Europe by Father d’Insarville, a Jesuit missionary; who, about the year 1730, sent seeds of it to the royal gardens of Paris. As, by cultivation, many varieties of the Aster have been obtained, the flower has been made the emblem of variety.
Through beds of idling lilies,
Chiding the foolish flowers
That watch their mirrored beauty;
So live the thoughtless many,
Who throng the halls of fashion.
Set all its music flowing;
Be air, and dew, and light, and fire,
To keep the soul-flower growing.
Have likenesses in feeling and in life.
And life, so varied, hath more loveliness
In one day than a creeping century
Of sameness.
Till the soul sighs for sameness; which at last
Becomes variety; and takes its place.
From which still fresh revolving pleasures flow;
In books and love the mind one end pursues,
And only change the expiring flame renews.
American Starwort.... Welcome.
The Starwort is another late-blooming flower. It is exclusively indigenous to North America and the Cape of Good Hope. The flowers are of every variety of hue, and present a very attractive appearance.
With a dazzling eye, and a lovely green.—
They scent the breath of the dewy morn:
They feed no worm, and they hide no thorn,
But revel and grow in our balmy air;
They are flowers which Freedom hath planted there.
Bid its unborn sweets in thy bosom live;
It shall charm thee from all a stranger’s pain,
Reserve, suspicion, and dark disdain:
A race in its freshness and bloom are we;
Bring no cares from a worn-out world with thee.
Juniper.... Protection.
The Juniper has been the favourite of Superstition. The ancients consecrated the shrub to the Furies. The smoke of its green roots was the incense which they offered in preference to the infernal gods; and they burned its berries during funerals to ban malign influences. In some parts of Europe, the peasant still believes that the perfume of Juniper berries purifies the air, and drives evil spirits from his humble cot. The Juniper is made to signify protection, on account of the defensive qualities ascribed to it by superstition, and the shelter its drooping branches afford to small animals which are hard pressed by the hunters.
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed;
But let me that plunder forbear,
She will say, ’twas a barbarous deed.
“Who could rob a poor bird of its young;”
And I loved her the more, when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.
Hazel.... Peace—Reconciliation.
Fable gives the following account of the origin of the signification of the Hazel. There was a time when men were at constant war with each other, and could not be restrained from cruelty and revenge by any tie of kin. The gods at length took pity on them. Apollo and Mercury made presents to each other, and descended to the earth. The god of harmony received from the son of Maia the shell of a tortoise, out of which he had constructed a lyre, and gave him in exchange a Hazel stick, which had the power of imparting a love of virtue and of reconciling hearts divided by envy and hate. By the power thus given him, Mercury taught men the love of peace, and of home and country, and made commerce the bond of nations. Adorned with two light wings, and entwined with serpents, the Hazel rod given to the god of eloquence by the god of harmony is still, by the name of caduceus, the emblem of peace, commerce, and reconciliation.
Which leads a life of peace below!
As yet unclothed, the Hazel tree
Prepares his early tufts to lend
The coppice first-fruits; and depend
In russet drops, whose clustered rows,
Still closed in part, in part disclose,
Yet fenced beneath their scaly shed,
The pendent anther’s yellow head.
Ere long into a smile will turn;
I would not that a face as fair
As thine, beloved, should look so stern.
The chain of ice that winter binds,
Holds not for aye the sparkling rill;
It melts away when summer shines,
And leaves the waters sparkling still:
Thus let thy cheek resume the smile
That shed such sunny light before;
And though I left thee for a while,
I’ll vow to leave thee, love, no more.
Ere the dim phantoms thou art chasing die—
Ere the gay spell, which earth is round thee throwing,
Fades like the crimson from a sunset sky.
Life is but shadows, save a promise given,
Which lights up sorrow with a fadeless ray.
Oh, touch the sceptre!—with a hope in heaven,
Come, turn thy spirit from the world away.
Oak.... Nobility.
The form of the Oak tree, when grown fairly and naturally, is a perfect emblem of its qualities, so firm set, so massive, and strong. You may always know it instantly, whether as a wintry skeleton form, bare, and gnarled, and angular, or in its summer garb of rich and finely massed foliage, always the monarch of the woods.
The gentle mind by gentle deeds is known,
For man by nothing is so well bewrayed
As by his manners, in which plain is shown
Of what degree and what race he is grown.
Those poor possessions from another’s deeds,
Unless our own just virtues form our title,
And give a sanction to our fond assumption!
life of an oak tree.
Since, in a stormy wind,
An acorn fell one autumn day,
Like thousands of his kind.
And hungry beasts were they;
They crunched the mast where’er it fell,
And they feasted well that day.
With heavy hoofs, they trod
That acorn—perchance hundreds more—
Deep in the yielding sod.
And became a young Oak tree;
With a slender, straight, and flexile stem,
Dressed in rich greenery.
A bold and noble thing;
Each summer showed a leafier crest,
And a longer shoot each spring.
Some stern official men;
They marked the fairest, loftiest trees,
And they were doomèd then.
And quickly passed it by,
And laughing harshly, said ’twould do
By the next century.
There rang that deathful sound,
The woodman’s axe;—and crashing fell
Trunks, branches, all around.
For that oak timber good,
And carried it in loads away
From its old native wood.
Mid stormy winds and squalls,
Both merchant-ships, and men-of-war,
“Old England’s Wooden Walls.”
The royal roof support,
And look down in the banquet-hall
On king, and queen, and court.
May shrine a pictured face,
Of Dolci’s gentle loveliness,
Or Raphael’s angel grace.
Its flowered and gilded frame
To the good trees of which I sing:—
Well have they won their fame!
Groaned ’neath baronial fare,
If they could talk of that Oak wood,
Might tell of dwelling there.—
And broader spread its shade,
And the dappled deer lay sheltered ’neath
The canopy it made.
In full-grown prime and pride,
And lords of various mind and mood
Possessed those woodlands wide.
Loved horse, and hawk, and hound,
And he chased all o’er his wide domains,
Wellnigh the whole year round.
In those long bygone days,
Loved hawking too; and gallant trains
She led through forest ways.
When lord, and squire, and knight
Rode forth, mid bugles ringing shrill,
With dainty ladies bright,
To sweep along by vale and hill,
Or through the forest glade,
Where the echoes of their laughter light
A merry music made.
Beneath the young Oak tree,
And oft foretold how grand a thing
In after-time ’twould be.
For direful civil war
Spread its fell curse throughout the land,
Wasting it near and far.
A warrior stern was he,
He dwelt with camps and cannon more
Than sylvan glade and tree.
By craft and deeds unfair,
His brother claimed and won, although
His infant son was heir.
And loved no thing save gold;
He soon marked out the stately tree,
To be cut down and sold.
The grand and noble thing!
His dull eyes only measured well
What moneys it would bring.
His wicked life ebbed low,
And suddenly, death summoned him
From his ill-got hoards to go.
The woods, and wealth untold,
Came then unto that warrior’s child,
A boy of ten years old.
For though yet young in years,
His mother’s sorrows and his own
Had made him old in tears.
Came home that youthful heir,
For his chief source of gladness was,
To bring his mother there:—
Again each well-known spot,
Where days of happiness had passed,
That ne’er could be forgot:—
Maidens, and serving-men;
And garments, richer than of old,
He bade them bring her then.
Left all untrimmed and bare,
Were planted, pruned, and decked anew,
And stored with all things rare.
One glade within the wood,
The shady glade, where broad and high,
The noble Oak tree stood.
For her that lone spot bore:
’Twas there she parted from her lord
To meet on earth no more!
His last, last fond farewell!
From thence she watched him ride away
The eve before he fell:—
No marvel that sad lady loved
The silent spot so well!
The lady and the boy,
For he to her was all on earth,
Her one sole living joy.
Her warrior’s tomb beside,
When the boy had grown an aged man,
With grandsons by his side:—
And peasants, when they spoke
Of the old tree within the glade,
Called it—the Lady’s Oak.
Hath altered all around,
Where once the forest’s stillness lay,
Now whirling wheels resound.
E’en on that spot we see,
Where dappled deer and timid birds
Dwelt fearlessly and free.
One old and mouldering shell
Of a most ancient, huge Oak tree
Stood near the public well.
In childish sport and play,
And much I mourned to see at last
The trunk quite cleared away.
And noisy coaches sweep
With roar and riot,—even where
That lady came to weep!
In ancient things and new;
And if we see so much in one,
What may not hundreds do?
In ancestry, to make the foolish wise,
The ignorant learned, the cowardly and base
Deserving our respect as brave and good.
All men feel this: nor dares the despot say
His fiat can endow with truth the soul,
Or, like a pension, on the heart bestow
The virtues current in the realms above.
Hence man’s best riches must be gained—not given;
His noblest name deserved, and not derived.
And heavy burdens of the earth. They are
The pillars in the temple of this life,
Its strength and ornament; or, hidden far
Beneath, they form its firm foundation-stone.
In nobleness they stand distinct and lone,
Yet other men upon them lean, and fain
(Such selfishness in human bosoms swells)
Would lay on them the weight of their own pain.
Where greatness is, a patient spirit dwells;
They least repine who bear and suffer most:
In still and stern endurance they sustain
The ills whereof all weaker minds complain;
And in their blessed lot they stand, without a sigh or boast.
Yew.... Sorrow.
The Yew is among all nations an emblem of sorrow. Its bare trunk, and dark foliage, with which its fruit, looking like drops of blood, stands in harsh contrast, excite in us a sort of aversion. Persons who sleep under a Yew tree are liable to be seized with dizziness, heaviness, and violent headache. Its juice is poisonous, and the tree exhausts the soil which supports it, and destroys all other plants which spring up beneath it. The Yew was planted in old English burying-grounds, and its wood was commonly employed for making bows and arrows before the introduction of fire-arms. The Greeks, impressed with the melancholy aspect of this tree, invented the fable of the unhappy Smilax; who, seeing that her love was rejected by young Crocus, was transformed into a Yew.
Could bear to be no more?
Yet who would tread again the scene
He trod through life before?
Whereon a form was lying:
’Twas Ellen;—there the suffering saint,
Without a murmur or complaint,
In peace and hope was dying.
A silence deep as death was there
When her true soul departed;
And grace and mercy crowned her end
Who lived the broken-hearted.
O’er the chords of the youthful heart,
And the earnest eye, dimmed with strange weeping,
Sees the visions of fancy depart;
When the bloom of young feeling is dying,
And the heart throbs with passion’s fierce strife
When our sad days are wasted in sighing,
Who then can find sweetness in life?
The knell of hopes, and fears, and fleshy aims.
The spirit light has cast a farewell beam—
Has shaken off its way-worn gear, and winged
To heaven. Sorrow will demand her tears,
For he was lovely, and leaves a hollow
In our near-drawn sphere which none may upclose.
But thoughts of heaven, through tears, will light us,
Making that refresh which seemed to blast!
Dead Leaves.... Death.
A more appropriate emblem of death than the remains of the forest’s refreshing verdure could not be selected. Withered by the chill breath of ruthless Winter, the leaves strew the earth; and, in time, mingle with the dust, like ourselves. The eye cannot help watching how the winds pursue, scatter, whirl, and drive these remnants of departed life.