The poetical language of flowers : or, The pilgrimage of love

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LANGUAGE OF FLOWEBS.

THE

POETICAL

LANGUAGE OE ELOWEES;

OR,

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BY

THOMAS MILLEE.

“ A book,

In which thou wilt find many a lovely saying
About the leaves and flowers,—about the playing
Of nymphs in woods and fountains, and the shade
Keeping a silence round a sleeping maid.”— Keats.

FIFTH EDITION.

LONDON:

GRIFFIN, BOHN, AND COMPANY,

STATIONERS’ HALL COURT.

MDCCCLXII.

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LONDON:

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T. HARltILD, p^j^pR, SHOE LANE,

FLEET STEEET.

Station

TO THE PRINCESS ROYAL OF ENGLAND.

Rosebud of England ! I have chosen thee
From all the beauties of the flowery train
Sole Princess o’er this rainbow-realm to reign:
Through all the land none worthier can I see,
Beyond the shadow of the royal tree,

To sway the sceptre o’er this sweet domain;
Subjects that perfume hill, and vale, and plain,
Wherever sings the bird or hums the bee.

I bring before thee England’s choicest posies.
Dappled like her own skies at Day’s first hours,
Almost as beautiful as thine own roses :

I’ve gathered them for thee in w 7 oodland bowers,
Where the bud opens and the blossom closes,
That thou may’st reign over this Land of Flowers.

Thomas Miller.

s

PREFACE.

All the books which have hitherto treated oil
the Language of the Flowers are, with the ex¬
ception of a few slight alterations and additions,
mere translations from the French work of Aime
Martin; nor am I aware of any production in
the English language on this subject which
professes to he original, saving the present. If
flowers, the most beautiful objects in nature, are
to be converted into the messengers of friendship
and love, and are capable of conveying beautiful
and poetical meanings, it is surely worth while
to trace a resemblance between the flower and
the emblem it represents, which shall, at least,
have some show of reason in it. This task I
have attempted, taking for my guides no less
authorities than Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, and
Milton; whatever meanings they have attributed
to the flowers I have retained, and also endea¬
voured, like them, to find, in either the name
or the nature of the flower, some resemblance to

Vlll

PREFACE.

the thought it is in tended to express, and so, by-
adding here and there a blossom to the beautiful
wreath they have left unfinished, I trust that I
have done something towards the completion of
a work which shall he worthy of the name of
England’s Language of Flowers.

In the legends which illustrate each sentiment,
or group of flowers, I have endeavoured to create
a new interest, by linking them with human
affections and fanciful narratives, the origin of
which may either he traced in the old heathen
writers, or found amid the lighter lore of our
own day. Not that I have fettered myself to
any given rules, or chained my fancy to any cir¬
cumscribed space ; for I will not yet believe that
there is

“ So small a range

In the present strength of manhood, that the high
Imagination cannot freely fly,

As she was wont of old ; ”

hut that she can, as in former days, spread out
her free wings when she listeth, and

“ Show us all,

From the clear space of ether to the small
Breath of new huds unfolding

for I have more faith in the love of my country
for the old fanciful literature, than many have.

PREFACE.

IX

To me England has ever been an island “full of
sweet sounds that give delight and hurt not:”
and I think that a nation so rich in poetry as
ours, should not be without its own Language
of Flowers. Better believe in the messages the
bees brought from the flowers on Mount Hy-
mettus, when they settled upon the lips of Plato,
and foretold that there slept the eloquence which
would one day charm the world ; or endeavour
to trace fanciful letters in the wavy lines and
mazy forms which they sometimes assume, as
they streak the green hill-side, than find in them
no meaning at all—that the blossoms still send
tidings abroad, which when once whispered into
the ear settle down noiselessly into the hearts of
all who believe in the poetry, and beauty, and
love of the flowers.

Although my Index of the emblematic mean¬
ings of the flowers varies considerably from that
which is appended to the French work before
referred to, still I doubt not that it will be found
more accurate, and that the reasons I have given
for adopting the emblems attached to the flowers
are clearer and more comprehensive than any
that have hitherto appeared. In every floral
index which I have seen, the Meadow-sweet, or

X

PREFACE.

Queen of the Meadows, is made the emblem of
Uselessness: a sweeter flower does not blow;
it is only equalled by the blossoms of the Haw¬
thorn in perfume, and I think I have with good
reason changed its signification to Neglected
Beauty. Again, the Anemone, or Wind-flower
of the Greeks, has been selected as the emblem
of Forsaken Love: I have, in honour of Milton,
chosen the Primrose; for the Bard of Paradise
has beautifully said,—

“ The rathe Primrose that forsaken dies;”

and w~e seldom see one bud alone on the root.
So have I gone on through all my fanciful or
poetical illustrations: either following the old
poets, or gathering from the very nature of the
flower some quality that represents the sentiment
I have attached to it. The subject has never
before been taken up in the old poetical spirit:
there are signs of a timid step and trembling
hand, which betray a want of confidence in the
task, as if it had not been a labour of love. I
have proceeded without fear, and have adapted
many “ an old-world story” to the meanings ot
the flowers, which, I trust, will give pleasure to
all my readers.

T. M.

CONTENTS,

DEDICATION TO THE PRINCESS ROYAL .

PREFACE .

TIME, LOVE, AND THE FLOWERS
LOVE AND THE FLOWERS
FORGET-ME-NOT .

THE VIOLET OF THE VALLEY
FLOWERS OF LOVE ....
OLD SAXON FLOWERS .

HOW THE ROSE BECAME RED

THE QUEEN OF BEAUTY AND OF LOVE

FLOWERS OF THOUGHT .

PANSIES.

THE DAISY OF THE DALE
DROOPING DAISY

DAISIES.

LEGEND OF THE FLOWER-SPIRITS .
SONG OF THE FLOWER-SPIRITS .

THE QUEEN OF MAY

HOW MAY WAS FIRST MADE

CUPID AND PSYCHE

THE VALE OF ARCADIA . .

ELLEN NEVILLE ....

PAGE

. V

vii
. xiii

1

. 13
26
. 36
38
. 56
70
. 73
82
. 84
89

. 102
105
. 112
116
. 129
132
. 143
146

Xll

CONTENTS.

THE SNOWDROP .

TIME AND THE FLOWERS .

THE HAPPY VALLEY ....
INDEX OF THE POETICAL LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS
FLOWERS AND THEIR EMBLEMATIC SIGNIFICATIONS

PAGE

158

160

172

177

190

LIST OF PLATES.

DRAWN AND COLOURED BY JAMES ANDREWS.

PAGE

MYRTLE, ANEMONE, LAURUSTINUS, FORGET-ME-

NOT ...... Frontis.

BLUE VIOLET, WHITE JASMINE, MOSS-ROSS, PINK 26
BROOM, CANTERBURY-BELL, WHITE WATER-LILY,

ROSEMARY . .38

APPLE-BLOSSOM, POPPY, ROSE, LILY OF THE VALLEY 56
HEATH, WHITE ROSE, PANSY, HELIOTROPE . . 73

DAISY, FERN, WILD HAREBELL, FUCHSIA . . 84

GORSE, MARIGOLD, ACACIA, SWEET PEA . .132

CROCUS, DAMASK ROSE, GERANIUM, COWSLIP . 160

TIME, LOVE, AND THE FLOWERS.

Said Time, “ I cannot bear the flowers,

They spoil the look of old decay ;

They cover all my ruined towers,

My fallen shrines, and abbeys grey :

I’ll cut them down — why should they grow?

I marvel Death upon his graves
Allows so many buds to blow !

O’er all my works the Wallflower waves! ”—
His scythe he sharpened as he spoke,

And deeper frowned at every stroke.

In'vain did Beauty him entreat

To spare the flowers, as on the ground
She weeping knelt, and clasped his feet.

He only turned his head half round,

xiv TIME, LOVE, AND THE FLOWERS.

And sternly bade her go her way.

Said Time, “ Were all the world to plead
They should not live another day,

No, not if Death did intercede!”—

He took his scythe and at one sweep
The flowers became a withered heap.

Time came again, and so did Spring ;

The spot once more with flowers was strown,
He scarce could see a ruined thing,

So tall and thick the buds had grown.

“ Oh, oh ! ” said Time, “ I must upturn,

Dig deep, and cover in like Death ;

I’ll not leave one behind to mourn,

Or sweeten more the breeze’s breath:

Full fathom five I’ll lay them low,

Then leave them if they can to grow ! ”

Summer met Time in that same place,

It looked more lovely than of old,

For there had sprung another race

Of flowers from out the upturned mould,
Which had been buried long ago.

“ How’s this ? ” said Time, and rubbed his eyes.
“ I have laid many a city low, *

But never more saw turret rise.”—

Love at that moment chanced to pass,

He touched Time’s arm, and shook his glass.

TIME, LOVE, AND THE FLOWERS.

XV

“ Old man,” said Love, “ the flowers are mine ;

Leave them alone, and go thy way—
Destruction is the work of thine,

’Tis mine to beautify decay.

Is’t not enough that thou hast power
To lay both youth and beauty low,

But thou must envy the poor flower
Which scarce a day sees in full blow ?

I’ve seen thee smile on them for hours! ”—

“ ’T is true,” said Time, and spared the flowers.

\

THE

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS,

LOVE AND THE FLO WEES.

Upon a bed of roses Love reclined,

The heart-dyed flowers across his mouth were thrown.

And both their sweets were in one breath combined.

As if they from the self-same bud had blown;

You could not tell, so sweetly were they blended,

Where swelled Love’s crimson lip, nor where the rose-bloom ended.

It was in that age, when the golden mornings
of the early world were unclouded by the smoke
of cities ; when the odours from thousands of un¬
trodden flowers mingled with the aroma of old
forests, and the gentlest wind that ever tried its
wings flapped its way through vast realms of sleep¬
ing fragrance—that Love first set out to discover
the long-lost Language of the Flowers. There had

B

2

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

long been rumours in the olden world, that before
the angels left their watch beside the star-beaconed
battlements of Heaven, and gave up all their glory
for the love of woman, the Buds and Blossoms had
held sweet converse together ; and that many a
time when the nightingale ushered in the twilight
with her song, voices from the flowers had made low
response amongst the glades and rose-girded pas¬
tures of the Garden of Paradise. Even on Olympus,
Love had heard that an immortal language never
could die ; that, although silent, it still slept some¬
where amongst the flowers. And many a time,
whilst resting on some fragrant bed, he had been
awakened by low whisperings, and disturbed by the
heavy beating of his heart, which ever seemed
urging him onward to commence his holy mission,
and discover that language, which had been lost
ever since the day when Eve went weeping from
beneath the angel-guarded gates of Eden.

Love arose, and shook the rounded dewin loosened
pearls from the feathery silver of his wings, and
soared far away over many a hill and valley ; alight¬
ing when weary, and kneeling lowly, with attentive
ear and bowed head, beside the blossoms. For a
long time he only learnt what the bees said when
they hung murmuring over the honeyed bells, and
what words the butterflies whispered as they alighted
upon the flowers with subsiding wings. Onward

LOVE AND THE FLOWERS.

3

wandered Love for many a day ; — although he
caught the faint breathing of the blossoms, yet the
meaning of their lowest words was still to him a
mystery. At last, weary and sad at heart, he sat
down and wept upon a bed of roses. The Rose was
his mother’s favourite flower, it had ever been
sacred to Venus, and he heard a sound, as of low
sighing, amongst its leaves ; and when he laid down,
lie felt the drooping petals falling upon his lips and
around his neck, as if to catch the tears that fell.
Then it was that Love first kissed the Rose and
blessed it unawares, for the sweetness and beauty of
the flower sank into his heart. Whilst folded upon
his lips, she told him, that ages ago Jove selected
her for the Queen of Flowers and the Goddess of
Beauty ; that nothing human had ever surpassed
her charms : and that when every image of poetry
was exhausted, none could equal her own ; that
from the first creation of flowers, she had been
named “ the ornament of the earth, the princess of
plants, the eye of the flower, the blush of beauty,
the breath of love.”* That even when her leaves
had withered, to mark her immortal origin, she gave
not up her breath, but still lived in a spirit of
invisible fragrance ; that she never knew old age,
but sank to sleep in perfume, in the full perfection
of her beauty, for she was the fairest daughter that
* Fragment attributed to Sappho.

4

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

was born of the Mother of Love. So Love found his
sweet and long-lost sister in the Lose, and she first
spoke to him in the old language of the flowers,
giving him a new lesson every day ; until not a bell
bowed, nor a bud expanded, nor a blossom opened
its beautiful lips, but what Love knew every word
it whispered.

For days did Love linger with his sweet sister,
the Rose, before he again set out on his pilgrimage ;
but his journey was now no longer lonely ; he found
a companion in every flower by the wayside, and
held converse with every bud that dwelt within its
green homestead of leaves. The Honeysuckle told
him how, in the olden age, she was the emblem of
Devoted Affection ; how she twined over rural and
primeval huts, when love alone was counted happi¬
ness and the only wealth man coveted was the pos¬
session of a true heart—one that loved for evermore,
and, throughout all the changes of time, for ever
remained the same. The Lily blushed as he drew
near, and across her pearly whiteness stole a
crimson shadow, as if a winged rose had hovered
above her for a moment, and then passed on; and
with downcast eyes she told him, that to her
belonged Purity of Heart; that she was once so
holy a sanctuary, that even angels had deigned to
dwell with her, and in their love for so spotless an
abode had forfeited the domains of Heaven. The

LOVE AND THE FLOWERS.

5

Forget-me-not uplifted her blue eyes as he ap¬
proached, and said, that she had never forgotten
him, but had waited in patience and silence many
an age for his coming; that, although her lips were
sealed, she held fond communion with her own
heart, and that she never looked up to the stars but
they bade her hope ; that she was still as true to
Love as the blue heaven that bent over her, when
first the morning-stars sang together for joy. The
timid Violet shrank amid her broad leaves as she
heard the approaching flutter of his wings; and
long did Love linger around her, and sigh as he
hung over her beauty: at last, she looked up and
told him, that her home was the abode of Modesty;
that she seldom ventured forth into the world;
that those who loved her sought out her solitude,
for she coveted not the gaze of a stranger’s eye, nor
loved to parade her beauty abroad amongst the
blossoms ; for there were those amongst the child¬
ren of men who, forgetful of all modesty, peeped
under her face, and looked into her downcast eyes.
The Daisies rose up to welcome him, and gathered
together in thousands to witness his approach.
They made him a couch of their starry coronets,
they embraced him with their green arms, and
looked fondly upon him with their golden eyes, as
they told him, in sweet, unstudied syllables, that
they were the daughters of Innocence ; and as Love

6

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

gazed tenderly upon them, he felt a hushed and
holy awe about his heart, such as had never
touched those innocent flowers, that for ever
remain in their childhood. Filled with sad and
pleasing Thoughts, which gathered around him
whilst he slept beside a bed of Pansies, he awoke
and winged his way to a grey, old, ruined fortress,
thinking that he there might ponder over the
lessons he had learnt from the flowers. But on the
mouldering battlements he beheld the wild Wall¬
flowers blowing ; and when he inquired, why they
still haunted such a scene of decay and desolation ?
they answered, that they had outlived all that was
once lovely and happy; and although Beauty no
longer reigned there, and the banquet-hall was
deserted, and the voice of the lute had ceased to
sound in the lady’s bower—they were still Faithful
amid all the storms of Adversity.

Long did Love brood over the new language
which he had discovered, and many a day did he sit
pondering to himself, as if hesitating whether or not
he should trust Woman with the secret. “She is
already armed with beauty,” reasoned Love, as he
sat with his elbow pillowed on a bed of flowers, his
bow unstrung, and his arrows scattered at random
by his side; “ there is a language in her eyes, and a
sweet music in her voice, and shall I now teach her
to converse through flowers—to give a tongue to

LOVE AND THE FLOWERS.

7

the rose, a voice to the lily, and hang upon the
honeysuckle words of love, and turn every blossom
6he gathers into the language of affection ? No ; I
will again fly abroad, and dropping a bud here, and
a bell there, see to what purpose she turneth these
beautiful secrets. I will but at first teach her a few
letters in this new Alphabet of Love.”

Then he thought, that as the flowers were such
holy things—born of beauty and nursed in purity,
fed upon the dews, and seldom looking upon aught
less sacred than the stars, as if they were more
allied to heaven than to earth—that if the virtue,
and goodness, and love, which they represent, were
but practised by mankind, they would again make
the children of earth what they were in the infancy
of the world, and man would once more be ranked
“ only a little lower than the angels.”

Love flew to the burning East, where Beauty is
guarded by jealous lattices, and Pride, armed with
sharp scimitar, stands always ready, feeling its cold,
keen edge, and waiting to cut every heart-sprung
affection asunder ; to punish a fond look unac¬
companied by wealth, with death ; and to dig a
grave for every hallowed feeling that is unattended
by Power. Love dropped a few flowers in the
guarded turret and then concealed himself. A
white hand shaped them after the fond feelings of
her heart, and then extended her rounded arm and

8

LANGUAGE OF FLOWEES.

let them fall from the airy balcony ; and the lowly
lover, who waited below, gathered up the banded
flowers, and placing them upon his heart bore them
away. He wept, mused, sighed, and smiled over
them in his solitude, until he found their hidden
meaning, and spelled out, letter by letter, the
mysterious language of love. Fearlessly did he
approach with them in his hand—he looked not. he
spoke not: the watchful guardian smiled grimly
upon his drawn scimitar, believing that its sliarp
edge had cut asunder every cord of love ; for he
saw not the bright eyes that peeped out from every
bud — he beheld not the sweet lips that bent forward
from every blossom. He heard not the language
which the flowers uttered, and he saw not how Love
looked on and smiled, as he noted every word
which went back, and sank unperceived into the
heart.

Ages passed away before Love entered the
flowery fields and velvet valleys of merry England ;
his heart had long been light, and his wings un¬
fettered, and he cared not now into what quarter of
the world he wandered, for he found that wherever
he went upon his flowery errand, man grew more
refined, and woman each day bore a closer resem¬
blance to the angels. The dinted helmet, the bat¬
tered shield, and keen-pointed spear, were laid aside,
and instead of rushing upon his mailed adversary,

LOVE AND THE FLOWERS.

9

the warrior now sat a captive at the feet of Beauty.
He visited ancient castles and humble hamlets, and
thronged thorpes and thatched granges, and taught
everywhere this new language of love. If he saw a
rustic maiden with her head hanging aside, and her
hands clasped, he plucked the fragrant blossom of
the Hawthorn, and throwing it at her feet, whispered
into her ear and bade her hope. As his foot dashed
away the dew from the up-coned Lilac, he gathered
the topmost sprig and threw it at her unsuspecting
lover, who from that moment dated his first Emo¬
tions of Love. He pointed out the spot where
many a blue-belled flower grew, and there they met
and vowed to be Constant unto Death ; and while
they sat hand-in-hand gazing upon the white Water-
Lilies that rested upon their thrones of green velvet,
and were rocked by every ripple which curled the
clear crystal of the lake, they felt that deep heaving
of the heart which ever proclaimeth the Purity of
Love.

So he wandered along ; — and on wild moorlands,
where rude huts rose, and scarce a flower broke the
dark-brown solitude, Love left the broad Fern as a
token of Sincerity : on bleak mountain-tops, where
scarcely a tree threw down its chequered shadow to
form a golden network upon the greensward, he
planted the Harebell, and the crimson Heather, to
give a charm to Retirement and Solitude. Into the

10

LANGUAGE OP FLOWERS.

depths of the loneliest woods he went, visiting deep
dells and deserted dingles, where the graceful Lilies-
of-the-Valley grew, telling them they were not for¬
gotten, but should yet he proudly worn in many a
fond breast that sighed for a Return of Happiness.
Beside the Marigold, which closed its eyefe as if for
very Sorrow, he planted the Celandine, and leaving
the Hawthorn, Hope, to cheer them and keep watch,
he promised that, whilst ever the golden star shone
there, it should be the image of Joys to Come.
From flower to flower he flew on his peaceful pil¬
grimage : through them reconciling lovers who had
long been estranged, and bringing back many a
wandering affection that had often sighed for a fond
heart to dwell within.

Thus Love restored a language which, for undated
centuries, had been lost,—which the sweet tongue
of woman had made music of before the beauty of
the early world was submerged beneath the waters.
For Time had all but blotted out the few records
which told that there ever existed a language
between Love and the Flowers.

Amid the broken and crumbling ruins over which
Time has marched, he has only left the sculptured
capital of some column, or shattered pedestal, where
we can trace, among a hundred rude hieroglyphics,
the rough outline of some flower, which was either
sacred to their religion or their love. In the ruins

LOVE AND THE FLOWERS.

11

of temples, whose origin even Antiquity has for¬
gotten, we see in the life-like marble of the figures,
brows which are wreathed with blossoms, and in the
broken fresco we find groups of maidens strewing
the pathway which leads to the holy shrine with
flowers,—the carven altar is piled high with them,
they garland the neck of the victim which their
priests are about to sacrifice,— and, we know no
more. Ages have passed away since that pro¬
cession moved—the shadows of three thousand
years have settled down over the hills and valleys,
where those beautiful maidens first gathered the
flowers of Summer,— history has left no record
of their existence—the language in which they
breathed their loves, their hopes, and their fears,
has died away — even their name as a nation
is forgotten: and all we know is, that their
men looked noble, and their women beautiful,
and that flowers were used in their sacred cere¬
monies, and that all, excepting the mute figures
upon the marble, have long since passed away.
We sigh, and try in vain to decipher these ancient
emblems.

Love turned to the fables of the Heathen Poets,
and there he found that those whose beauty the
gods could not lift into immortality, they changed
into flowers ; as if they considered that, next to the
glory of being enthroned upon Olympus, was to be

12

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

transformed into a beautiful and fragrant object;
one that, while as the sun shone upon the world,
and the globed dews hung their rounded silver
upon the blossoms, so long should it stand through¬
out all time,

“A thing of beauty and a joy for ever."

FORGET-ME-NOT.

13

FORGET-ME-NOT,

LOVE, FORGET ME NOT, FOR IF FORSAKEN I DIE.

Emblems.

LOVE, FORGET-ME-NOT — MYRTLE: FORSAKEN — ANE¬
MONE: I DIE IF NEGLECTED — LA Uli USTINUS.

Thy very name is Love’s own Poetry,

Born of the heart and of the eye begot,
Nursed amid sighs and smiles by Constancy,
And ever breathing, “Love, Forget mo not.”

Love and flowers caused the wise king of Israel
to break forth into song, and the lays he chanted
to the dark-haired daughter of Egypt are amongst
the richest notes that ever hung upon the golden
chords of the lyre. That the divinity he adored
was a fair daughter of Eve, whose beautiful form
often glided through the fretted chambers of the

14

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

princely palace of Jerusalem, even our most learned
and grave commentators have been compelled to
acknowledge : showing that the language in which
we express our admiration of the matchless love¬
liness of woman, approaches so near our imperfect
utterance of the adoration of heaven, that it is Love
which first teaches us to lisp the holier thoughts
that are wafted upward, and on the wings of prayer
borne to the abode of the angels. In what a sea of
bliss must the heart of the monarch have floated
when, looking out from his casement over the green
gardens of Jerusalem, he saw the whole landscape
steeped in sunshine, as if thrown back and reflected
from a mirror of gold; and gently awaking his
beautiful and dark-eyed Egyptian bride, he breathed
into her ear a sweet lay of love,—told her that the
flowers had again appeared on the earth, that the
singing-birds had returned from distant climes, and
the voice of the turtle was heard in the land,—that
the grapes threw out a sweet smell, and the young
roes were feeding amongst the lilies. He bade her
come forth and show her beauty, like an apple-tree
in full blossom amid the greenery of the surrounding
woods. While he murmured in her ear, and placed
his left hand under her head, and she looked back
upon him with half-averted eyes ;—the banner that
waved over him was Love. He led her forth by
the hand, and as her sable tresses blew back in the

FORGET-ME-NOT.

15

morning breeze, her queenly scarf streamed in an
arch, like a rainbow, “ backward borne,” and she
came down into the garden with a dancing step,
skipping along in the very fulness of her love, like a
young roe upon the mountains. Her lips were like
a thread of scarlet, her neck like a stately tower,
her hair like the floating silk of Cashmere; her
teeth white and beautiful as a flock of lambs re¬
turning from the washing ; her eyes, now and then
hidden by the raven ringlets which blew across her
queenly brow, were softer than the eyes of the dove
when it bends over and coos to its young. As they
walked along, a smell of spikenard, and cinnamon,
and myrrh, perfumed the air; and as he gathered
flowers, and placed them in her hand, he called her
his garden — his delight: the sweetest blossom that
ever hung over, or was reflected in the Nile, or
opened beneath the earliest sunbeam that ever gilded
the summits of her father’s pyramids. They rambled
onward through the garden of nuts—through the
valley covered with myrtles, that evergreen emblem
of Love, where the tendrils of the vine swayed idly
in the morning air, and the pomegranates put forth
their buds ; they went far away among the pleasant
fields, and, throwing aside their regal dignity, rested
themselves amongst the homely villagers. He told
her how Love is stronger than Death — that the
wide waters which overflow Egypt would be unable

16

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

to quench it; and that while he slept, his heart
was still awake, and that his dreams were ever of
Love.

Although the Myrtle is consecrated to Venus,
and formed the garland with which the Goddess of
Love and Beauty was crowned, growing also around
the temples which were dedicated to her worship,
still its antiquity dates not so far hack as the
Forget-me-not, which is as old as memory, and
coeval with the creation of man. It was amongst
the first flowers that sprang up from the saturated
earth, after the overwhelming waters of the great
deluge had subsided. Its history is found in the
earliest records of the world, and woven with those
legends which were current amongst the builders
of Babel, who, in their ambition, attempted to rear a
tower, the summit of which was to reach to the
stars. Thousands of the traditions, that were rich
in the lore of the antediluvian world, have been lost
for ages, and it is only in those countries which
were first peopled by the sons and daughters of
Noah, that we are able to trace the faint outline of
their origin, and in one of these relics of forgotten
poetry we find the legend of the Forget-me-not.

It was on the site of one of those old homes ol
the early world—one that had stood beside the
banks, where as beautiful a river flowed as had ever
flashed back the golden lines of sunlight from the

FORGET-ME-NOT.

17

moving mirror of its waters—that a lost angel sat
down, sad and sorrowful; his face buried in the
palms of his hands, his long ringlets, which the
celestial air of heaven had many a time fanned,
drooped negligently over his rounded shoulders;
and his broad white wings, which fell folded upon
his back, looked as if they had borne the brunt of
many a storm, and shaken from their white plumes
the blinding rain of many a descending shower. He
was one of those who had lost heaven through the
love of woman, and had floated long days in the
solitary air, his own image the only moving thing
shadowed in the silent waters that covered the
earth, while all below, excepting the ark, was buried
beneath the deep deluge. He had seen the last fair
face upturned on the high mountain-summit, suppli¬
cating Mercy, the last white hands raised and
clasped, in prayer, the dark locks floating upon the
boiling foam, where the big rain danced down, and
had poised himself like a voiceless bird above the
desolation, for she who loved to watch him alight,
the merciless eddies had borne far, far away for
ever. But the waters had now subsided, the green
hills had bared their tall summits, and the out¬
stretched plains at their feet were once more visible.
The top of many a mountain had now been washed
away, and the fields which before waved with a
thousand flowers were deeply covered beneath a

c

18

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

new soil — the grave of all that was lovely and
beautiful amongst women. And she, whose loss
the angel mourned, whose image had so often floated
between him and heaven, rising before his eyes
when he stood with bowed head amid the ranged
ranks of the winged cherubim, while the remem¬
bered echoes of her voice still seemed to sound
upon his ears, and made the holy anthem which
pealed through the vaulted gold grate like harsh
music,— she, too, was buried deep below : the love¬
liest flower which the deluge had destroyed, amid
all its wreck of bright and beautiful blossoms.

He raised the dim starlight of his eyes and gazed
around, but not a vestige remained behind to tell
of what had been. The trellised bower, over which,
even at noonday, a green kind of shadowy twilight
seemed to hang, was swept away, and not a trace
left to mark out the spot where it had once stood.
Groaning, he threw himself upon his side, and his
great immortal heart beat as if it would have burst,
while the snowy whiteness of his plumes was dab¬
bled over with the dark soil, which had settled down
and blotted out the light of her beauty whom he
loved. “ Never more,” exclaimed he, in the utter¬
ance of his deep agony, “ shall I lean upon thy
warm shoulder in the evening sunset, listening to
those silver accents, which to me were sweeter
music, than that which floated through the envied

FORGET-ME-NOT.

19

heaven I have lost. Never more will those milk-
white arms embrace me, nor shall I again taste the
kisses which steeped the rounded roses of thy
matchless lips, far sweeter than the dews which
swell the pouting blossoms that blow in the im¬
mortal gardens above. Those golden ringlets which
hung upon the downy whiteness of my wings,
like the last deep rays of sunset shed over a bed
of lilies, have now blended their bright clusters
with the clod of the valley: those eyes, which but to
look on made the stars, that pave the azure floor
of that heaven which I shall never again tread, look
dull, and dead, and rayless, will never again uplift
their fringed curtains, and show the deep blue orbs,
which swam in a sea of silver — they, alas! have
closed their soft and melting brightness for ever.
That heart, which was a fitting sanctuary for the
Holy One Himself to dwell in, is now cold, and
hushed, and motionless, and dark as the chaos I
flew over at His bidding, long before the first
morning broke upon the void.”

With one hand shadowing his face he rose from
the earth, mute and sorrowful; and tears, the first
that had ever yet dimmed immortal eyes, oozed out
from between the unstained whiteness of his fingers,
and fell like a shower upon the ground. He looked
upon the earth, and stood ankle-deep in the blue
flowers of the Forget-me-not—they had sprung from

20

LANGUAGE OF FLOWEES.

the angel’s tears ; and high in the air he heard a
floating, unembodied voice, sweeter than that music
which had cheered his lonely watch, when he kept
guard beside the battlements of heaven, while the
helmed cheruhims flew forth to wage war against
the fallen angels. It was the voice of her for whose
love he had sacrificed heaven : and, kneeling amid
the blue flowers, with clasped hands, motionless
as a statue, the low, aerial music shaped itself into
words, as it fell upon his ear; and he held his
breath with awe, for he knew that it was now an
immortal voice which said,—

By the wold and by the wildwood,

By lonely mere, and water’d lea,

Haunts of age, and sportive childhood,

I am doomed to follow thee :

By the torrent it was utter’d,

’Mid the flowers that round it blow,

And upon the breeze was mutter’d
The sad sentence of our woe —

And each bud and bell that’s hollow,

Bade thee lead where I must follow.

Till the flowers thy feet surrounding
Shall be planted everywhere,

No shaded stream but what they’re found in,
Throughout the summers of each year:

FORGET-ME-NOT.

21

And in remembrance of our sorrow,

Many a maid shall seek that spot
In twilight glooms, — and when the morrow
Gilds the sweet Forget-me-not—

Where the river murmurs hollow,

Lovers ages hence shall follow.

And where the forest brook runs brawling,—
Here in sunshine, there in shade,

Lovers shall be oft heard calling,

While they traverse glen and glade :

As they search each woodland spot,

Hazelled dell and briery brake,

For the blue Forget-me-not,

Which they’ll cherish for our sake —

And up to Heaven’s high arching hollow,
Many a sigh our loves shall follow.

And in the flower they shall see blended,

The golden star that emblems thee,

Rimmed with the blue thy wings descended —
The heaven thou’st lost, for love of me :
Without repining, or complaining,

Must thy weary task be done,

If thou hast hopes of e’er regaining
Those lost realms beyond the sun —

For the voice said, low and hollow,

“ Where he goeth thou shalt follow.”

22

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

Every one who has wandered by the meadow-
streams and woodland brooks of pastoral England
has gathered the blue Forget-me-not, one of the
most beautiful of our water-loving flowers ; looking,
where a bed of it is growing together, as if the blue
of heaven had dropped down, and blended with
the green tint of the earth. Nor is its azure-eyed
sister of the meadow (the Mysotis aryensis ) less
fair: but its legend has yet to be written, and the
gentle spirit portrayed who first planted it in the
fields of Waterloo above the graves of England’s
fallen heroes.

The Myrtle had its birth in the sunny clime of
the East, and first grew amid those gardens where
the dark-eyed daughters of the sun, as they floated
through the mazy circles of the dreamy dance, shook
out their silken ringlets to the dallying wind. In
many a peaceful valley which nestles down between
the mountain-passes is it found, with its beautiful
white blossoms blowing amid the untrodden soli¬
tudes, and filling the air with fragrance for miles
around. The fair maidens of Judea bore it in their
processions, and twined its scented branches into
oreen arbours at their solemn festivals. And among

fc>

the ancient traditions of the Arabs it is recorded,
that Adam bore in his hand a sprig of Myrtle when
he was driven from the garden of Paradise, it

FORGET-ME-NOT.

23

might he from the very bower where he first
breathed his love into the ear of Eve.

In spring the green woods of merry England are
covered with the flowers of the Anemone. Turn the
eye whichever way you will, there it greets you like
“ a pleasant thought: ” it forms a bed of flowers
around the foot of the mighty oak, and below the
tangling brambles, which you may peep between,
but cannot pass,—there, also, are its pearly blossoms
bending. The Greeks named it the Flower of the
Wind, and so plentiful is it in our own country
that we might fancy the breeze had blown it every¬
where. The gaudy Anemone of the garden, the
emblem of Forsaken Love, is known to all ; but
our favourites are the uncultivated offspring of the
windy woods, which come long before the broad
green leaves hang overhead to shelter them.

The Laurustinus is a beautiful evergreen, bearing
white flowers ; which, before they become opened,
have all the richness of the Rose about the colour
of the buds. Why so hardy a plant was selected
for the image of Neglected Love we know not,
unless it be that Love dies a hard death, and is
difficult to destroy. Milton has found a much more
poetical image in

“ The rathe Primrose that forsaken dies,”
than in the Anemone ; and for the sake of the Bard

24

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

of Paradise, the Primrose should have been held
inviolable to Forsaken or Neglected Love. It is a
more poetical flower than either of the above, and
although we have followed our predecessors in no¬
thing but their ill-chosen names, yet our emblem
of Forsaken Love is the Primrose, so christened by
Milton at his own Immortal Font.

FORGET-ME-NOT.

Forget thee, love? — no, not whilst heaven
Spans its starred vault across the sky ;

Oh, may I never be forgiven,

If e’er I cause that heart a sigh !

Sooner shall the Forget-me-not

Shun the fringed brook by which it grows,
And pine for some sequestered spot,

Where not a silver ripple flows.

By the blue heaven that bends above me,
Dearly and fondly do I love thee!

They fabled not in days of old

That Love neglected soon will perish,—-
Throughout all time the truth doth hold
That what we love we ever cherish.

FORGET-ME-NOT.

25

For when the Sun neglects the Flower,

And the sweet pearly dews forsake it,

It hangs its head, and from that hour
Prays only unto Death to take it.

So may I droop, by all above me,

If once this heart doth cease to love thee !

The Turtle-Dove that’s lost its mate,

Hides in some gloomy greenwood shade,
And there alone mourns o’er its fate,

With plumes for ever disarrayed :

Alone ! alone ! it there sits cooing :—

Deem’st thou, my love, what it doth seek ?
’Tis Death the mournful bird is wooing,

In murmurs through its plaintive beak.

So will I mourn, by all above me,

If in this world I cease to love thee i

26

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

THE VIOLET OF THE VALLEY.

YOUR MODESTY AND AMIABILITY HAVE CAUSED ME
TO CONFESS MY LOVE.

Emblems.

MODESTY —EL UE VIOLET: AMIABILITY— WHITE JASMINE:
CONFESSION OF LOVE — MOSS-ROSE:

BURE LOVE — PINK.

“Violets dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyec.
Or Cytherea’s breath.”— Shakspeabe.

In one of those secluded valleys, the heauty of
which astonishes the traveller as he comes upon it
unaware, stood a neat-looking, lowly-thatched cot¬
tage, like a hidden nest embosomed amid the green
tranquillity of the hills. A winding footpath threaded
its way towards the breezy summit,—here running

THE VIOLET OF THE VALLEY.

27

along the narrow level of a ledge, there making a
graceful bend round the bole of some majestic tree,
and farther on climbing upward, with a steep,
breathless ascent, until the level brow of the hill
was gained. Then, far as the eye could wander, it
commanded a view, over a vast outstretched land¬
scape, diversified with spires, and plains, and woods,
intercepted every way with a broad clear river, that
went rolling and bending along, until it dwindled
into a mere thread of silver, as it was lost in the
distance. On the brow of this beautiful hill a plain
rustic seat had been erected by the inhabitants of
the cottage in the valley; and as there was no
thoroughfare beyond what was traversed by the
neighbouring villagers, who came morning and
evening to milk the cows, which were heard lowing
amongst the hilly fields, the summit, like the valley
it overlooked, was seldom trodden by the foot of a
stranger. And often on a summer’s evening, when
the labour of the day was over, might the form of a
lovely maiden be seen leaving that cottage, and
climbing the steep ascent of the hill, carrying either
a little work-basket on her arm, or a book in her
hand, and every now and then pausing to look over
the landscape, as she threaded her way to the rustic
seat. Sometimes she sent forth her voice in gushing
music, which was prolonged and reverberated through
the dale, as if the echoes of the valley were her

28

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

companions, and their only delight were to call to
and answer each other. She sang from the very
overjoyousness of her heart, like a bird, perched
amid a cluster of milk-white blossoms, that takes
a delight in telling the trees, and flowers, and
sunshine, which hang around it, how great is the
pleasure that fills its little heart, and how happy it
is in the companionship of such sweet scenery : and
should the form of a stranger appear, the golden
chain of her melody was snapped asunder in an
instant, and, like a bird, she would dart down to her
little thatched nest in the valley below. Her
modesty, and the sweetness of her voice, had ob¬
tained for her, amidst the neighbouring villagers,
the name of The Violet of the Valley.

Those who know not the bliss which springs from
contentment, might marvel how one so beautiful
could rest satisfied by burying herself in such
seclusion. They might as well have asked the Violet
why it was so happy in the solitude which sur¬
rounded it, why it concealed its beauty amid the
green leaves by which it was overhung, and scattered
its sweetness upon “ the desert air ; ” and the Violet
might have replied, that although the air which
blew around it was deserted, yet many a breeze
would carry its sweetness afar off, perfuming unseen
and uistant places that were not solitary. Although
her beauty had not gladdened the gaze of many

THE VIOLET OF THE VALLEY.

29

beholders, still her voice on a calm summer’s even¬
ing had fallen with a peaceful hush on many a
gentle heart, coming upon the ear

“ Like the sweet south,

That breathes upon a bank of Violets,

Stealing and giving odour: ”

for hers were sweet and rustic strains,— unstudied
melodies, that stole in and out of the heart: they
were “ old and plain,” such as

“The spinsters and the knitters, in the sun,

And the free maids that weave their thread with bone.

Do use to chant: for they were silly truth.

And dallied with the innocence of love
Like th’ olden age.”

They were such as Barbara was wont to chant when
she went singing about the house before she “ hung
her head aside,” and all for love; for within that
innocent heart Love had not yet “ lighted his
golden torch, and waved his purple wings.” The
temple and the shrine were there, but within that
holy place no worshipper had as yet knelt down —
no incense was offered up excepting from the flowers,
those bowing adorers of that tranquil valley. The
anthems that echoed there were the songs of the
wild birds, and the prayer breathed forth was the
adoration of Nature, ministering in her own holy
temple. If Love was there, it sat like a child
playing in its innocence upon its own hearth, ad-

30

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

miring the starry Jasmine which threw its green
curtaining over the casement, or looking fondly at
the Moss-rose which peeped in timidly at the latticed
doorway. There was an unstudied grace in her
attitude which the eye of the sculptor hath not
yet caught,— a finish about the turning of the head
and the rounding of the shoulders, to which marble
hath not yet lent its enduring immortality ; while in
the large blue heaven of her downcast eyes, Modesty
ever seemed to sit enthroned. In her casual visits
to the distant market-town, men turned their heads
in wonderment, and even women marvelled from
whence such a being of life and beauty had sprung ;
for wherever she moved, she seemed to throw across
the pavement a glad streak as if of sunshine. The
astonished stranger made his inquiries in vain,— all
he could gather was, that she was called the Violet
of the Valley, but where she dwelt there were few
that knew. And many an eye ere it closed in sleep
pictured that form moving before it, until slumber
settled down, and in dreams they were carried
away to far-off dells and dingles ; to valleys where
the nightingale made music all summer long: and
they thought of Eve before she fell, and believed
that somewhere in the earth there still existed an
unvisited Paradise. They pictured a rustic home
which the amiable Jasmine overhung, without know¬
ing that with such her own was garlanded. They

THE VIOLET OF THE VALLEY.

31

conjured up a porch twined over with Moss-roses,
unconscious that the threshold over which her
beauty passed was wreathed with the same queenly
flowers. In their sleep they sighed over perfumed
beds of Pinks, not knowing that her own garden
was covered with them ; and they built up an ima¬
ginary abode for Love to dwell in, before the winged
god had either alighted upon, or visited the spot.
Many a sigh was sent over the hills which over¬
looked that little cottage, and many a prayer wafted
towards the happy valley in which she dwelt; but
the bees murmured round her home, the butterflies
sat swinging upon her flowers, morning and evening
the birds swelled their anthems upon the breeze,
and all night long the brook went singing to itself
beneath her window, and, excepting an affection for
all those sweet sights and sounds, and a heart at
peace with all mankind, she was as yet untouched
by Love.

But Love at length came, timid as he ever
cometh : concealing himself at first behind the trees,
or screened by the surrounding bushes, as if all he
coveted was to listen to the music of her voice.
When he appeared, she vanished; when he retreated,
she was again in her accustomed place. It was as
if the sunshine was sporting with the beautiful
shadow, and both vanished at the same moment of
time,— as if Love and Modesty were ashamed of

32

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

accosting each other, though they were ever sighing
when alone to he made one. Until one day Love,
emboldened, left a posy upon her favourite rural
seat, hiding himself while he watched the Violet of
the Valley untwining her sister flowers. As she
held them in her hand the Moss-rose fell against her
bosom, and she felt a strange fluttering from within,
which told her that Love was folding his wings, and
taking possession of his new abode. While from her
heaving heart arose this confession, her cheek be¬
came blanched until it was paler than the blossoms
of the Jasmine; then over all arose a flushing
warmth, the pearly pinkness of blushing love, mant¬
ling her cheek, and making it more beautiful than
the most delicate crimson with which the Moss-rose
was dyed : — and from that day Love and Modesty
dwelt together, their abode embowered about with
Jasmine, and trailing Roses, and Violets, sweet as
the perfumes of Paradise.

Love could not have found a happier nor a more
peaceful home. The very spot in which they dwelt
was a land of perfect poetry, and within it her
simple wishes were bounded; for she knew no more
about what the world calls rank, and splendour,
and fashion, than the modest Violet, after which
she Avas named, does of the flowers that are
forced into bloom and beauty within the unnatural
atmosphere of a hothouse. “ The heart,” says an

THE VIOLET OF THE VALLEY.

33

old writer, “ envieth not that which it hath never
known, neither doth the eye covet what it hath
never seen, and from this very ignorance cometh
much happiness.” Spring came, and poured her
opening buds into the valley, and let loose her
feathered songsters amongst the trees. Summer
followed, and, with sunny fingers, opened the flowers,
giving freedom to a thousand imprisoned perfumes.
Then came Autumn, with his wheaten sheaf and
ruddy fruitage,— and when all these were gone, she
had still Love left for her companion throughout
the dark Winter ; and, knowing that the bright
seasons would soon return again, there was nothing
in the world that she coveted.

Every one can remember some hank on which
the Violet blows—some green lane or pleasant foot¬
path in which they have been stopped in spring by
its fragrance. “ Sweet Violets” is one of the earliest
cries which greet the ear in spring, telling us that
they have come again, like beautiful children, herald¬
ing in the approach of summer; they bring joyous
tidings of brighter days, and the return of singing
birds, and the whispers of long leaves, and the
memory of pleasant walks, reminding us that Nature

D

34

LANGUAGE OE FLOWERS.

has awoke from her slumber, and is shaking open
the unblown buds, which have gathered around liei
during her long winter’s sleep. Dear was this
modest and beautiful flower to the hearts of our
elder poets, and from its sweetness, buried amid the
broad green leaves, they drew forth many an exqui¬
site image, and in it found the emblems of hidden
Virtue, and neglected Modesty, and unchanging
Love.

Stepping further into Summer, comes the star-
white Jasmine,— that sweet perfumer of the night,
which only throws out its full fragrance when its
sister stars are keeping watch in the sky; as if,
when the song of the nightingale no longer cheered
the darkness, it sent forth its silent aroma upon the
listening air. Many a happy home does it garland,
and peeps in at many a forbidden lattice, where Love
and Beauty repose. Little did the proud courtiers
and stately dames of Queen Elizabeth’s day dream
that this sweet-scented creeper (a sprig of which
seemed to make the haughty, haughtier still) would
one day become so common as to cluster around, and
embower, thousands of humble English cottages, a
degradation which, could they but have witnessed,
would almost have made every plait of their starched
ruffs bristle up, like “ quills upon the fretful porcu¬
pine.” Beautiful are its long, drooping, dark-green
shoots, trailing around the trellis-work of a doorway,

THE VIOLET OF THE VALLEY.

35

lil^o a green cuitain embroidered with silver flowers ■
while here and there the queenly Moss-rose, creep¬
ing in and out like the threads of a fanciful tapestry,
shows its crimson face amid the embowered green,
— a beautiful lady peeping through a leaf-clad
casement.

But of all the odours that ever floated from the
spicy shores of “ Araby the Blest,” there are few to
excel the sweet fragrance of our scented Pinks ; over
which, when the wind blows, the gale seems to come
laden as if with perfume from a bed of spices. Beau¬
tiful are they in their wild state, waving on the
ruined walls of some ancient fortress, and drooping
peacefully over those mouldering battlements, be¬
hind which the warder once paced, and the cross¬
bowman took his deadly aim,—there it still hangs,
throwing its sweetness over the roofless walls of the
banquet-hall, as if to show how frail and fleeting
was the beauty which once proudly trod those
crumbling floors.

Alas ! the breathing beauties have departed, and
only the flowers are now remaining behind. They
are gone who loved to see themselves wreathed
around with blossoms, and thought their loveliness
still lovelier when adorned with Summer’s opening
buds; for amid all the rich stores which Imagin¬
ation suggested, they could find no tints that
excelled, no shapes that surpassed, no fragrance that

36

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

outsweetened, the breath of the flowers. From the
deep purple which the haughty emperors wore, to
the shaded and delicate colours which mingled in
the varied costume of the crowned Queen,—when
the loom had exhausted its richness, and the uu-
sunned mine brought to light the splendour of its
treasures, they were still eclipsed by the matchless
attire of the flowers ; for “ Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.”

FLOWERS OF LOVE.

With grey head bent upon the ground,
While wandering through a Saxon vale,

A Pilgrim first the Yi’let found,

Flinging its fragrance on the gale,

As he towards the holy shrine

Journey’d along with wearied feet:—

He smiled to think the saint divine

Should him with such sweet odours meet.

A Lover on the Indian sea,

Sighing for her left far behind,

Inhaled the scented Jasmine-tree,

As it perfumed the evening wind :

FLOWERS OF LOVE.

37

Shoreward he steer’d at dawn of day,

And saw the coast all round embower’d,
And brought a starry sprig away,

For her by whose green cot it flower’d.

And oft when from that scorching shore,
In after-days, those odours came,

He pictured his green cottage door,

The shady porch, and window-frame,
Far, far away across the foam :

The very Jasmine-flower that crept
Round the thatch’d roof about his home,
Where she he loved still safely slept.

With raven-ringlets blown apart,

And trembling like a startled dove,

A lovely girl press’d to her heart
A Moss-rose, to appease its love.

But all in vain, it still kept beating,—-
And so she said, “ ’Tis all in vain!

Oh. this love, ’tis past defeating,—

What can I do but love again V”

38

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

OLD SAXON FLOWERS.

YOUR HUMILITY, AND CONSTANCY, AND PURITY OF
HEART, CLAIM MY AFFECTIONATE REMEMBRANCE.

Emblems.

HUMILITY— BROOM: CONSTANCY — CANTERBURY BELL :
PURITY OF HEART — WHITE WATER-LILY: AFFEC¬
TIONATE REMEMBRANCE — ROSEMARY.

Oft musing by the greenwood side,

’Mid Blue-bells deep, and golden Broom,
Time’s ancient gateway open wide,

And far adown the gathering gloom,

On many a mouldering Saxon tomb,

The oldest flowers of England bloom.

Beautiful art thou, 0 Broom! waving in all
thy rich array of green and gold, on the breezy
bosom of the bee-haunted heath. The sleeping
sunshine, and the silver-footed showers, the clouds
that for ever play about the face of Heaven, the
homeless winds, and the crystal-globed dews, that
settle upon thy blossoms like sleep on the veined

JwJI

in

1 \ y

/J

\

OLD SAXON FLOWERS.

39

eyelids of an infant, are ever beating above and
around thee, as if to tell that they rejoice in thy
companionship, and that, although a thousand years
have strided by with silent steps, Time hath not
abated an atom of their love. Who can tell the
thoughts of Saxon Alfred when, wandering alone
crownless and sceptreless, he stretched himself on
the lonely moor beneath the shadow of thy golden
blossoms, sighing for the fair queen he had left far
behind? When he bowed his kingly head, and,
musing on thy beauty, buried in a solitary wild,
thought how even regal dignity would be enhanced
by Humility, and that, although thou didst grow
there unmarked and unpruned, not a more princely
flower waved in his own English garden. And thus
musing he might pluck the Blue-bell that nodded
beside thee, and see imaged in the humble and
beautiful flower, an emblem of Constancy,— might
mark how ye still grew together side by side, how
the yellow Broom sheltered the azure Bell which
bloomed beneath it from storm and wind, and how,
when the sunshine streamed out, the constant flower
opened its blue eyes and looked upward, and thus
they became enamoured of each other. That his
thoughtful eye glanced over the silent waters of the
lonely mere, where the White Water-lily sat, like a
crowned queen upon a green throne of rounded
leaves, receiving homage from a thousand ripples,

40

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

which were ever bowing down and kissing the pearly
whiteness of her feet. How the snowy petals of
this pale princess of the waters might recall the
Purity of Heart of her he loved, how he might trace
the outline of her beautiful brow in the golden
crown of the flower, see in the silver-skirted ripples
the moving forms of her attendants, and, catching
another glimpse of the yellow Broom, and the
rounded Blue-hell, conjure up the Humility and
Constancy, and Purity of his own queen; and,
taking heart, strike some sad, sweet note on the
silent harp, which had hitherto lain neglected beside
him, and see rising before him a thousand homes,
which no misbelieving Dane had ravished, and a
kingdom freed from the desolating hand of the
invader. How, on a future day, some proud
Plantagenet might have heard the legend from
the sweet lips of the fair Saxon he had espoused,
and he might mount the humble Broom in his
haughty helmet, his cheek blanching while he gazed
over the possessions he had gained by plunder and
power, as he thought how, in former days, the
recovery of a kingdom had been planned, and won
back, by a brave and houseless king ; whose throne
was then a solitary heath, canopied by a blue and
hounded sky, and his attendants only the sur¬
rounding flowers.

Who can tell what sad feelings hung about the

OLD SAXON FLOWERS.

41

heart of the fair Saxon princess Ethelberga when,
standing in the twilight, on the broom-covered
steep hill-side, she saw from the distance the fires
kindled by the hands of the desolating Dane, and
beheld the flames which devoured the home of her
childhood reddening in the evening sky ? It might
be that whilst she found a couch amongst the
waving gold of the wild, surrounded by her houseless
attendants, and pillowed her beautiful head upon
the Broom, she selected it as the emblem of Hu¬
mility. And when she saw the waving Blue-bells
spring up on the very spot where the stormy sea-
kings had encamped—where the tide of battle had
raged, and swollen, and subsided, leaving no other
trace of its course than the silent ridges which had
heaped up over the dead; she selected the blue-
cupped flower as the true image of Constancy; which,
though crushed, and bruised, and buried, forsaketh
not the chosen spot where its beauty first bloomed.
That when she sat mournful beside the moorland
mere, wearied through carrying water to quench the
thirst of the brave Saxons, who had been wounded
in battle, she saw the pale Water-lilies sleeping
upon their dark-green velvet leaves, spotless as the
clear element upon which they floated, and leaving
no vestige of the gross earth from which they
sprung ; and she thought how the heart of a woman,
ennobled by virtuous deeds, might become so

42

LANGUAGE OP FLOWERS.

purified, that if looked into by the eye of an angel,
he could not discover within, either blot or blemish,
nor aught that varied from his own divinity, but the
fond humanity of love. Musing, she might conjure
up some grey old Saxon abbey, nestling amid the
silence of a green, sequestered valley, with its quiet
graves, around which the Rosemary grew, hallowed
the more in its remembrance, through having been
brought by holy men across the pathless sea ; and
she might think that even as that plant put forth
its flowers in the dead midnight of winter, so
through the deep clouds which hung over and dark¬
ened her native land, the morning of peace might
yet break, and see many a battle-field again over¬
grown with flowers.

It was in those days that Love and Constancy
set out together to visit the world, and look for
the abode of Happiness : for there were rumours
abroad that she had concealed herself somewhere in
the earth, and they were fearful that Happiness
had long pined for their society, and grown weary
in waiting for their coming. Humility went with
them; and Affectionate Remembrance, a lovely
maiden, who sighed as often as she smiled, was
also their attendant. Many a time would she have
sunk by the way, had not Love and Constancy con¬
soled her ; while Humility led her by the hand and
whispered words of hope, whenever she felt low and

OLD SAXON FLOWERS.

43

desponding. “ I cannot help it,” said Remem¬
brance ; “ but when I look into the past I see more
of pain than pleasure ; and as for the future, it is so
chequered with hopes and fears that whilst ‘ I doat
I doubt; ’ and there ever seems some sorrow over¬
hanging and ready to settle down upon what I love.”
“ Take heart,” said Constancy, “ all will yet he well;
even Love is sometimes fretful, and it is only by
leaning upon him, and looking into his face, that I
can comfort him ; for he seems as if he sometimes
had forgotten that I was still at his side.”

Humility, and Constancy, and Purity of Heart,
are the very divinities of Love, and among the
holiest images which we enshrine in the innermost
temple of the soul. Humility, like a lowly and
beautiful maiden, ever walketh abroad with down¬
cast and modest glance, her hands folded meekly,
and her free thoughts wandering like graceful hand¬
maids through the charmed chambers of the mind ;
unfettered by the painful panoply of pride, and un¬
impeded by the watchful sentries who ever keep
jealous guard around the slave of ambition. On
her cheek the healthy beams of morning beat, and
the dews of dawning are the pearly gems which
diadem her brow : there is a grace in the unstudied
flow of her drapery which the artists of old seized
upon, when they called forth from the canvas forms
which embodied the divinity of woman. They

44

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

drew the adoration of the angels from her looks,
and the great masters flew to her expressive fea¬
tures ; then they shadowed forth the Virgin-mother
bending over her Holy Child ; for there is no love
without humility, no true affection unless it see
in the object of its worship a divinity towards
which it tremblingly aspires.

“ Constancy,” says the poet, “ liveth in realms
above: but kind Pity, who had long looked down
with tender eyes, and beheld how cheerless and
restless the wandering heart was, even though it
fondly loved, sent her down upon the earth as a
comforter, and she took up her abode within the
blue-helled flowers of the wild. She gathered to¬
gether all the floating affections of true hearts, and
formed for them many a sweet habitation, which
they had sighed for in vain, to dwell in. She
erected for them a new and pleasant home in the
heart, — she assembled round them a thousand
household virtues,— and what the eye had before
sought for abroad in vain, it found within ; it be¬
came the resting-place of Love, and there alone
was true beauty to be found. Man no longer sighed
for the Paradise he had lost, for Constancy led him
by the hand and brought him back ; and he sat
enthroned amid a lovelier Eden in the beating
heart of woman.

Abroad he saw her image everywhere reflected.

OLD SAXON FLOWERS.

45

The Water-lily sleeping on the lake mirrored back
the purity in which he now dwelt; all around beside
her might move, but Constancy had anchored her
true roots within the heart,— an hundred contend¬
ing waves might watch over the spotless snow of her
blossoms, but she still rose triumphant, whiter and
purer from the contest; for the washing of every
ripple but laid bare some hidden virtue, and from
every assault she won back some lost affection.

And when Love and Constancy set out to wander
hand in hand through the world, with Humility
and Affectionate Remembrance for their attendants,
within was found that Purity of Heart which ever
ensureth devoted attachment; it was then that they
made a happy home wherever they alighted, and
carried with them a sweet sunshine, which threw
its brightness around the shadiest places. In old
primeval forests they sometimes dwelt, far away
from the fever and the fret of busy cities,—they
found a shelter beneath the yellow Broom, and a
couch amid the azure Bells of flowers. Where
huge sandy deserts stretched for miles away they
pitched their tent, and in the deep caverns of
majestic mountains Love and Constancy took up
their abode. They tended their cattle together
on vast plains, and followed Summer over many
a high hill and outstretched valley; sojourning
together in rude huts, whose branched walls and

46

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

leafy roofs bore the first rough tracings of the
primitive home of man. The feudal castle raised
its grim and grated portcullis to receive them, and
the iron archers threw down their tight-strung bows
to welcome their approach. They slept together
in sheds where the hardy serf struggled against
wrong, and laid many a night on the bleak hill¬
side, where the lonely shepherd tended his flock.
They accompanied many brave hearts that went
forth reluctantly to wage war against the invaders
of their country, and as they conversed together
they beguiled the listless cheerlessness of the way.
Wherever they went old age coveted no other com¬
panionship, nor did they leave a grey head to sink
down in sorrow to the grave. They gave to poverty
content, to affliction resignation, and into the sad
heart of pity they breathed hope.

It was then that mankind began to find deep
matter for meditation in the flowers ; that they no
longer looked upon the blossoms as the mere har¬
bingers of the seasons, and beautiful ornamenters of
the fields, but discovered that they were lettered
over with the language of Love,—that Beauty
bloomed where no human eye perceived it, in se¬
questered nooks and untrodden wilds, and Nature
needed not the presence of man, to either look upon
or praise her works. They believed that hidden
spirits dwelt among the flowers of the woods, and

OLD SAXON FLOWERS.

47

that not a Bell waved in the solitudes of the
pathless dell, hut what had its own fair minister, for
they were the first to discover

“ That there are more things in heaven and earth
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

That the “ airy tongues which syllable men’s names,”
sounding on lonely moors, and amid the silence
of solemn forests, are invisible spirits, which linger
about the earth, until the human heart becomes
purified by Love— and a fitting habitation for them
to dwell in. That as there is nothing in the
ocean but what hath its representative on land, so
is there no virtue upon earth but what is found
in a purer form in heaven,—that Divine Love
sends down its essence like a stream of light, and
that all which prevents it from becoming in man
what it is in the angels, is the perishable mortality
in which we are clothed.

The Descent of Spring was ever beautiful, from
the first moment that she planted her white feet
upon the daisied green of April, to when she
stretched herself upon the couch of flowers, which
had sprung up of their own accord that she might
recline upon their sweetness. For her the leaves
grow longer every day, that under their shade she
may find shelter when the silver-footed showers
descend. Her eyes are ever blue as her own April

48

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

skies; her cheeks dyed with the delicate crimson of
the apple-blossoms ; her white and blue-veined neck
beautiful as a bed of lilies-of-the-valley, intersected
with trailing violets; while her silken air streams
out like the graceful acacias, that throw their gold
and green upon the breeze. Around her brow is
twined a wreath of May-blossoms—pearly buds, but
yet unblown. High above her head the skylark soars,
while the linnet warbles in the brake, and from
every tree and bush an hundred choristers raise
their voices in the great concert which they hold
to welcome her. The sunbeams that dance about
the primrose-coloured sky — the insects that hum
and wanton in the air, the flowers that day by day
rise higher above the bladed grass, and the bursting
buds that grow bolder as they venture out further
from the hedgerows to peep at her beauty, all
proclaim with what delight the return of Spring
is ever hailed.

We know not what visions the great poets may
have seen in the earlier ages, when they described
Spring as a beautiful maiden descending from
heaven, and scattering flowers upon the earth.
They may have caught glimpses of the immortal
goddess as she cleaved her way through the sky,

OLD SAXON FLOWERS.

49

and hung poised for a moment upon the skirt
of some silver cloud. In the blue and deepening
twilight, as they went musing by the side of some
hoary forest, they may have seen, through the
evening shadows, eyes peering amid the dim foliage,
as bright as the stars which hang in the bending
arch of heaven : for we know not what forms visit
the folded flowers, as they bow their heads and
seem to sleep through the still night; nor can we
tell what the leaves say to one another when they
whisper together, or what wisdom is uttered by
“ those green-robed senators of mighty woods.”
Titania and her fairy train may yet haunt many
a bank

“ Whereon the wild thyme blows,

Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows j
Quite o’ercanopied with lush woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.”

The White Water-lily is the Queen of the Waves,
and reigns sole sovereign over the streams ; and it
was a species of Water-lily which the old Egyptians
and ancient Indians worshipped—the most beautiful
object that was held sacred in their superstitious
creed and one which we cannot look upon even
now without feeling a delight mingled with rever¬
ence. No flower looks more lovely than this “ Lady

50

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

of the Lake,” resting her crowned head on a green
throne of velvet, and looking down into the depths
of her own sky-reflecting realms, watching the
dance, as her attendant water-nymphs keep time to
the rocking of the ripples, and the dreamy swaying
of the trailing water-stems. Whether or not this
Queen of the Waters retires to her own crystal
dominions after sunset, and sleeps in her silver
palace beneath the ripples, seems to he a matter of
doubt amongst botanists. To an old angler like
myself, who has lost many a hook, and had his lines
entangled, amongst their stems after they had sunk
below the waters, there can be no doubt at all;
but whether this might be the case in very shallow
streams, or “ made ponds,” is another matter; my
experience is confined to ancient delfts and old out-
of-the-way meres and places, that yet retain their
ancient Saxon names, where the true English
Water-lilies still grow. The bard of Erin says,—

“ Those virgin lilies all the night
Bathing their beauties in the lake,

That they may rise more fresh and bright,

When their beloved sun’s awake.”

The “Bonny Broom” is familiar to every lover
of the country, and cannot be mistaken for the
gorse or furze, even in the dark ; for, although their
flowers are very similar, there is a difference in
the latter, which is soon “ felt.” The Broom is

OLD SAXON FLOWERS.

51

one of England’s oldest flowers, and was as familiar
to the eye of the ancient Briton as it is to our
own; neither has its name undergone any change,
for Alfred the Great called it the Broom, as we
do now. I have chosen to carry it farther back
than the days of the Plantagenets, for the origin of
its emblem, as there is but little of Humility about
their haughty race, whatever there may be in their
name.

Blue-belled flowers, known by a hundred various
names in different parts of England, and all be¬
longing to the genus Campanula , are as familiar as
the Daisy to every one who has rambled about the
country—from the campion (the giant) to the creep¬
ing, and every variety of bell-shaped flower that
belongs to the order. But of all the Blue-bells,
my favourite is the little wild Hare-bell, which still
gets as near into London as it can for the smoke,
and may be found no farther off than Dulwich and
Norwood, growing by the dusty roadside, under the
shade of hedges, by dry ditches, and in spots where
scarcely any other flowers are to be found it may
be seen nodding its beautiful blue head, when
nearly all the blossoms of summer have faded.
There, together with the heather, it still blows, in
spite of railways and land-surveyors, and will do
until the foundations for new houses have uprooted
it from its native spot; until human habitations

52

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

are reared, and household hearths blaze above the
place where it has for ages shaken its beautiful blue¬
bells to the breeze. That botanist displayed some
taste who first selected these bell-shaped flowers as
the emblem of Constancy, for “ true blue” is one of
the few colours about which Britons boast; they are
truly English flowers —

“Sweet daughters of the earth and sky.”

The Rosemary is so often mentioned by our early
writers, both in prose, poetry, and our oldest dramas,
that a long article, possessing great interest to
such as love old-fashioned things, might be written
upon it. The Kosemary was used both at their
feasts and their funerals,—the christening-cup was
stirred with it, and it was worn at their marriage
ceremonies. Shakspeare has chosen it for the emblem
of Remembrance, and who would attempt to change
the meaning of a flower which his genius has hal¬
lowed, or disturb a leaf over which he has breathed
his holy “superstition?”—in memory of him we
use the latter word in all reverence. A few years
ago it was customary in many parts of England
to plant slips of Rosemary over the dead, nor has
the practice yet fallen altogether into disuse,—rural
cemeteries will revive these ancient customs. But
I have entered rather lengthily into this subject
in my “ Pictures of Country Life,” under the article

OLD SAXON FLOWERS.

53

headed “ Rural Cemeteries,” so have good reason
for not going again over the same ground. Shak-
speare, who never even gathered an image from a
flower, or selected it as an emblem, without first
examining its appropriate nature, chose the Rose¬
mary as the representative of Remembrance, for it
flowers in winter. How beautiful and poetical is
this allusion ! When all around beside is withered
and decayed, when the

“Wind and rain beat dark December,”

and the gaudy Summer is dead and buried, with
all her wreathed flowers ; it was then that from the
only one which came to look upon and cheer man
by its presence, he chose the Rosemary, and said —

“ That’s for Remembrance;

I pray you, love, remember.”

OLD SAXON FLOWERS.

The Lily on the water sleeping,

Enwreath’d with pearl, and boss’d with gold,
An emblem is, my love, of thee :

But when she like a nymph is peeping,

54

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

To watch her sister-huds unfold,

White-shoulder’d, on the flowery Lea,

Gazing about in sweet amazement,

Thy image, from the vine-clad casement,

Seems looking out, my love, on me.

No marvel that my heart became
Attached to thee—in all around me
I saw the likeness of thy face ;

Within the Broom I spelt thy name,

In every Blue-bell’d flower I found thee,

In all fair things I could thee trace ;

No hud, nor bell, the stem adorning,

Hung with the trembling gems of morning,

The dew,—but call’d up thy embrace.

In thee I found a new delight,—

Alone my heart was ever sighing,

And pining for another heart;

Like flowers that bow beneath the night,

The very fragrance in them dying,

So did I droop from thee apart;

Till on me broke thy beauteous splendour,—
Thine eyes that looked — oh, heaven ! how tender
I cannot tell thee what thou art.

Thou’rt like the Water-lily pure,

That grows where rippling waters rumble.

OLD SAXON FLOWERS.

Constant as are the flowers of blue,

That every stormy change endure ;

And, like the Broom, though ever Humble,
They die, but never change their hue :
The Rosemary, that in December
Still says, “ I pray you, love, remember
Through storms and snow remaining true.

56

LANGUAGE OP FLOWERS.

HOW THE EOSE BECAME EED.

YOUR PREFERENCE WOULD BRING ME CONSOLATION .
YOUR LOVE. A RETURN OF HAPPINESS.

EMBLEM3.

PREFERENCE— APPLE-BLOSSOM: CONSOLATION -POPPY:
LOVE — ROSE: RETURN OF HAPPINESS—

VIOLET OF THE VALLEY.

“ Sometimes slie shakes her head, and then his hand,

Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground:

Sometimes her arms enfold him like a band;

She would:—he will not in her arms be bound ;

And when from thence he struggles to be gone.

She locks her fingers (round him ) one in one.”

Shakspeare’s Venus and Adonis.

It was drawing towards the decline of a beautiful
summer day, when the red, round sun was bending
down a deep, blue, unclouded sky, to where a vast
range of mountains stretched, summit upon summit,
and in the far distance again arose, pile upon pile,

/

\

*

HOW THE ROSE BECAME RED.

57

until high over all towered the god-haunted height
of cloud-capt Olympus, rising with its clouded head,
like another world, on the uttermost rim of the
horizon. At the foot of this immense world of
untrodden mountains opened out a wide, immea¬
surable forest, stretching far away, league beyond
league, with its unpeopled ocean of trees, which
were bounded somewhere by another range of un¬
known mountains, that again overlooked a vast,
silent, and unexplored world. On the edge of this
pathless desert of trees, and nearest the foot of
Olympus, sat the Queen of Beauty and of Love;
with her golden tresses unbound, and her matchless
countenance buried within the palms of her milk-
white hands, while sobbing as if her fond, immortal
heart, would break. Beside her was laid the dead
body of Adonis, his face half hidden beneath the
floating fall of her hair, as she bent over him and
wept. Beyond them lay the stiffened bulk of the
grim and grisly boar, his hideous jaws flecked with
blood and foam, and his terrible tusks glittering
like the heads of pointed spears, as they stood out
sharp and white in the unclouded sunset. Not an
immortal comforter was by: for the far-seeing eye
of Jove was fixed listlessly upon the golden nectar-
cup, as it passed from hand to hand, along the
rounded circle of the Gods, whilst they were re¬
counting the deeds of other days, when they waged

58 LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

war against the Titans. Even the chariot of Venus
stood unyoked at the foot of the mount; the silken
traces lay loosely thrown together upon the ground,
and the white doves were idly hovering round in
the air; for the weeping goddess was so over¬
whelmed with sorrow, that she had forgotten to
waft her lightning-winged whisper to the Mount
of Olympus; nor had they received any summons
from the charioteer Love, who with folded wings lay
sleeping upon a bed of roses, with his bow and
arrows by his side.

In the glade of this vast forest of the old pri¬
meval world—whose echoes had never been startled
by the blows of a descending axe, nor a branch rent
from their majestic boles, saving by the dreaded
bolts of the Thunderer, or some earth-shaking storm,
which, in his anger, he had blown abroad,—the
Goddess of Beauty still continued to sit, as if un¬
conscious of the savage solitude which surrounded
her ; nor did she notice the back-kneed Satyrs, that
peered upon her unrobed loveliness with burning
eyes, from many a shadowy recess in the thick¬
leaved underwood. Upon the trunks of the mighty
and storm-tortured trees, the sunset here and there
flashed down in rays of molten gold, making their
gnarled and twisted stems look as if they had just
issued red-hot from the jaws of some cavern-like
furnace, whose glare the fancy might still trace in a

HOW THE ROSE BECAME RED. £D

blackened avenue of trees, up which the red ranks
of the consuming lightning had ages agone marched.
Every way, where the lengthened shadows of even¬
ing began to fall in deeper masses, the forest
assumed a more savage look, which was heightened
by the noise of some deadly-tusked boar as he went
snorting and thundering through the thicket; the
growl of the tiger was also heard at intervals, as he
retreated farther into the deepening darkness of the
dingles, mistaking the blaze of sunset for some de¬
vouring fire. But the eyes of Venus saw only the
pale face of her lover,— she felt only his chilly and
stiffened hand sink colder and deeper into the warm
heart on which she pressed it, and over which her
tears fell, slower or faster, just as the mournful
gusts of her sorrow arose or subsided, and sent the
blinding rain from the blue-veined lids that over¬
hung her clouded eyes ; for never had her immortal
heart before been swollen by such an overflowing
torrent of grief. But the warmth of her kisses,
which would almost have awakened life in a statue
of marble, fell upon lips now cold as a wintry
grave; and her sighs, which came sweeter than
the morning air when it first arises from its sleep
amongst the roses, stirred not one of the clotted
ringlets which softened into the yielding whiteness
of her heavenly bosom,—

60

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

“ She looked upon his lips, and they are pals ;

She took him by the hand, and that was cold;

She whispered in his ears a heavy tale,

As if they heard the woeful words she told.”

She would have given her immortality but to have
heard those lips murmur and complain, as they had
done a few hours before—to have seen those eyes
again burning with disdain as they flashed back
indignantly the warm advances of her love. She
pictured him as he had that very morning stood,
in all the pride of youthful manliness and beauty,
when he looked down, blushing and abashed, as
he held his boar-spear in his hand, when she
threw the studded bridle over her own rounded
and naked arm, and the proud courser pricked up
his ears with delight, and shook his braided mane,
while his long tail streamed out like a banner, and
his proud eye dilated, and his broad nostrils ex¬
panded, as he went trampling haughtily on, proud
to be led by the Queen of Beauty and of Love.
She pictured the Primrose bank on which he lay
twined reluctantly in her arms, how he tried to
conceal his face, this way, and that way, amongst
the flowers, whenever she attempted to press his
lips,—

“ While on each cheek appeared a pretty dimple:

Love made those hollows, if himself were slain,

He might be buried in a tomb so simple.”

HOW THE EOSE BECAME BED. Cl

oho recalled his attitude as he untwined himself
from her embrace, and hurried off in pursuit of his
steed, which had snapped the rein, that secured it
to the branch of a neighbouring oak, and started
at full speed down one of the wild avenues of the
forest. In fancy she again saw him, as he sat
panting upon the ground, wearied with the fruit¬
less pursuit; and how, kneeling down, she then

“ Took him gently by the band,

A lily prison’d in a gaol of snow :

Or ivory in an alabaster band :

So white a friend engirt so white a foe ;

A beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling.

Showed like two silver doves that sat a-billing.”

And as she looked upon him, she imagined that
his lips moved again, as when they said, “ Give me
my hand, why dost thou feel it? ” she fancied she
again felt his face upon her cheek—his kisses upon
her lips, as when she fell down and feigned herself
dead; the while he bent her fingers and felt her
pulse, and endeavoured, by a hundred endearments
and tender expressions, to restore her. And how,
when she pretended to recover, she paid him back
again with unnumbered kisses, whilst he, wearied
with opposing her, no longer offered any resistance;
and how, at last, he broke from her fair arms, and,
darting down “the dark lawn,” left her seated alone
upon the ground.

62

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

As picture after picture rose before her of what
bad been, and every close pressure of the cold, in¬
animate, but still dearly-loved form, told her what
death was, and that those very “ hopes and fears
which are akin to love,” were now for ever darkened
and extinguished, she burst forth into such a loud,
wailing lamentation, that the sound found its way
unto Olympus, and fell upon the ever-open ear of
Jove, who, in a moment, dashed the golden nectar-
cup upon the ground, which he was in the act of
uplifting to his lips, and sprang upon his feet.
There was a sound of hurrying to and fro over the
mountain-summits, which sloped down to the edge
of the forest—of gods and goddesses passing
through the air — of golden chariots, that went
whistling along like the wind, as they cleft their rapid
way—and the flapping of dark, immortal wings,
between which many a beautiful divinity was
seated. The golden clouds of sunset gathered
red and ominously about the rounded summit of
Olympus, and a blood-red light glared upon such
parts of the forest as were not darkened by the
deepening shadows of the approaching twilight,—
for the Thunderer had stamped his immortal foot,
and jarred the mighty mountain to its very base.
And now, in that forest glade, which but a few
moments before was so wild and desolate,—where
only the forms of the grisly boar, the dead Adonis,

HOW THE ROSE BECAME RED.

63

and the weeping Goddess of Beauty, broke the level
lines of the angry sunset, were assembled the stern
Gods, and the weeping Graces, and the fluttering
Loves that ever hover around the chariot of Venus.
With bleeding feet and drooping head,—wan, and
cold, and speechless,—was the Goddess of Beauty
borne into her golden chariot, and with the dead
body of Adonis, wafted by her silver and silent¬
winged doves to Mount Olympus. And then a deep
darkness settled down upon the forest. Death was
to her a new grief; she had seen the sun set from
the steep of Olympus, but only to arise again on the
morrow ; the roses of Paphos withered, but there
were ever other buds hanging beside them ready to
open; and although she knew that all things change,
yet Death had never before seized upon one whom
she loved. In vain did Jove attempt to comfort
her, — throughout the long hours which wrap earth
in night, she wept without ceasing. The stars of
heaven burnt brightly around her, but she regarded
them not, for those which she loved to look into
were dim and quenched for ever. In low tones
the mighty Thunderer told her, that all who were
mortal must perish, that they must again mingle
with the earth from which they first sprang, before
they could share the immortality of the Gods ; but
that when so many moons had waxed and waned,
he would, in pity for her sorrow, and for the sake

64

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

of Love, which never dies, restore her mourned
Adonis, but not until the roses bloomed again,
which the autumn winds were then withering upon
earth. He remembered not, at the moment, that
she whom he sought to console had the sole do¬
minion over these regal flowers, that they were
dedicated to her and to Love. She had hut to wish
it and they began to bloom again,—and as she sat
in silence, she felt the warm blood flowing slowly
through the veins of Adonis, — as the day dawned,
his hand returned her own eager pressure, and
when his lips moved they gave back murmur for
murmur, and kiss for kiss.

When the next morning’s sun arose and gilded
these silent glades, the Roses, on which the blood
of the Goddess of Beauty had fallen, and which
were ever before white, were changed into a delicate
crimson; and wherever a tear had dropped, there
had sprung up a flower which the earth had never
before born, and that was the Lily of the Valley;
and wherever a ruddy drop had fallen from the
death-wound of Adonis, there rose up the red flower
which still beareth his name. Even the white
apple-blossoms, which he clutched in his agony,
ever after wore the ruddy stain which they caught
from his folded fingers ; and the drowsy Poppy
grew up everywhere around the spot, as if to denote
that the only consolation which can be found for

HOW THE ROSE BECAME RED.

65

sorrow is the long, unbroken sleep of death. Thus
the Rose, which was before white, became red, and
was ever afterwards dedicated to Beauty and Love.
And the Lily of the Valley ever afterwards came
up with the earliest flowers of spring, proclaiming
that Happiness may again return even after the long
silence of Death’s unbroken, wintry sleep.

The Rose is the queen of flowers, and neither in
beauty nor fragrance has she an equal throughout
the wide range of the whole floral world. There
are now above a hundred varieties of the common
or Provence Rose, which were first brought from
the East many centuries ago, and from these every
species of the Moss-rose first sprung. Even its
very foliage is graceful: and the comparison be¬
tween an opening rosebud and beauty dawning into
womanhood, has become a standard and favourite
flower in the choice garden of English poetry. In
ancient days the bride was crowned with roses ;
they were suspended over the heads of the guests
while they sat at their banquets, and solemnly
carried by white-robed virgins in their religious
processions. Some of the most admirable passages
which are to be found in Oriental poetry, are de¬
scriptive of the love of the nightingale for the rose.

F

66

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

Anacreon, in his beautiful ode, tells us that the
breath of the Rose perfumes the bower of Olympus,
and that the Graces love to twine themselves to¬
gether by a band of these queenly flowers, and that
it was planted, and reared, and twined above the
abodes of the Muses ; that he himself loved to view
it, sleeping upon its glittering stem, in the early
glance of morning, to wipe away with tender hand
the dew, which lay like tears upon its blushes, and
to hold the young buds, while they dropped heavy
with the rounded pearls which adorned them. That
there is nothing beautiful in nature unless it wears
the tinge of the Rose ; that Aurora paints the
morning sky with its colours, and the velvet cheeks
of the nymphs are dyed with the reflection of its
blushes. It gives us pleasure to enrich our pages
with the following beautiful gem, transplanted from
the Land of Roses into our native soil by Miss
Costello, and entitled

THE FAIREST LAND.

" ‘ Tell me, gentle traveller, thou

Who hast wandered far and wide.
Seen the sweetest roses blow.

And the brightest rivers glide:
Say, of all thy eyes have seen,

Which the fairest land has been

HOW THE ROSE BECAME RED.

67

* Lady, shall I tell thee where
Nature seems most blest and fair.

Far above all climes beside ?—

’T is where those we love abide.

And that little spot is best

Which the loved one’s foot hath pressed.

' Though it be a fairy space,

"Wide and spreading is the place;

Though’t were but a barren mound,

’T would become enchanted ground.

‘ Wi th thee yon sandy waste would seem
The margin of Al-Cawthar’s stream ;

And thou canst make a dungeon’s gloom,

A bower, where new-born roses bloom.’ ”

Lily of the Valley! what a spring sound there
is in its very name! How delicate it is, both in
form and fragrance ; resting its white, fairy-like bells
upon a deep background of green, like a little child
which has fallen asleep with its careless arms
extended upon the emerald April grass. Pleasant
visions does it recall before mine eyes of other
days—of springs which have long since passed
away : of old woods just putting forth their summer
leaves,—dingle, and dell, and glen, and copse, and
many other sweet woodland spots, amid which we
rambled for hours together, that were strewn every¬
where full “ ankle-deep with Lilies of the Valley.”
Places where the callow throstles first lisped, and
the golden-beaked blackbird sang,— where the little
wren went hopping from spray to spray, and the
yellow linnet warbled forth her song, concealed by

63

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

the white blossoms of the black-thorn,— they have
ever seemed to us as the sweetest and fairest
daughters of Spring—the little fairies of the wood,
just wakening from their winter sleep,—

“ Shading, like detected light,

Their little green-tipt lamps of white.”

The drowsy Poppy has been selected, in floral
language, as the emblem of Consolation : and, from
its dreamy, narcotic qualities, is well chosen. Many
of the double Poppies which are cultivated in gardens
have a very elegant appearance. It also forms a
very beautiful ornament about the borders of our
corn-fields, being pleasanter to the sight than to
the smell; for the fragrance is very unwholesome,
and on this account it is called by the country
people the Headache. It is also named the Red¬
cap, and Corn-rose, in different parts of England.
In the heathen fables the Poppy is first said to
have been raised by the goddess Ceres, to console
her for the loss of her daughter Proserpine, who,
while gathering flowers in the fields of Enna, was
carried off by Pluto; and ever since then the God¬
dess of the Harvest has cultivated it amidst the
golden wheat. • In some parts the country maidens
have still a belief that they can test the affections
of their lovers by the secret power which the Poppy
possesses; that if one of the petals is placed upon
the palm of the hand, and when struck smartly

HOW THE ROSE BECAME RED.

69

makes a loud report, their swains are true, while if
it bursts in silence, it foretells that their lovers are
false. In allusion to this, there is an old stanza,
written, if I err not, by the poet Gray, which says,

“ By a prophetic poppy-leaf I found
Your changed affeetioD, for it gave no sound.

Though in my hand struck hollow, as it lay,

But quickly withered, like your love, away.”

In the Apple-blossom we see the Lily and the
Rose blended together, like a blush softening into
the snowy whiteness of a sweet face ; it may be the
countenance of some one that we secretly love — yet
dare not, for very fear, give utterance to our affection
lest some rival should already be preferred. It may
be, at the same time, that we already stand high in
her estimation, and yet her innate modesty causes
her to shrink back from revealing it; and so we go on
dallying and sighing together, like the spring breeze
playing in and out between a bunch of Apple-
blossoms, then quitting them until the warmer air
of the bolder summer comes forth, and ripens the
blushing blossoms into the full fruit of mellowed
love. Of all the beauties which Spring hangs upon
the trees, as she leaves a wreath here and a garland
there, the loveliest of all her rich decorations is still
the opening Apple-blossoms — the emblem of Pre¬
ference in Love.

70

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

THE QUEEN OF BEAUTY AND OF LOVE.

Fair Goddess, with heart-searching eyes,

In thy gold, dove-drawn car descend ;
Lovely as when Olympian skies
Above thy braided brow did bend ;

When Love upon thee used to tend,

And round thy sweet and matchless head
Did wreaths of richest Eoses blend,
Blending the pale hue with the red,

Like cheeks o’er which young blushes spread.

Oh, visit us, fair as when thou

Sank on thy loved Adonis’ breast,

With all the flush which on thy brow
Did at that very moment rest,

When feigning death, thou feltest blest;
The while thy rounded bosom rose,

As does a bird’s within its nest,

Hemmed in with buds of snow-white sloes ;
When kisses timed thy sweet repose.

THE QUEEN OE BEAUTY AND OF LOVE.

71

Come to us in a cloud of flowers,—

Around our hearts their sweets diffuse;
Making them like Olympian bowers,

Where pearly blend with rosy hues.

Appear as when, through morning dews,
Thou didst thy mourned Adonis chase,

And he (poor hunter) did refuse
To kiss thy never-equalled face,—

But struggled in thy warm embrace.

Appear as on Olympus’ brow,

When all the gods in love were driven,

And swore, by thy cheeks’ rosy glow,

That every heart was rent and riven—

That thou wert Love, and Love was heaven.
And that the regions of the blest
Were unto thee for ever given—

That he who sunk upon thy breast
Would never seek another rest.

Descend as when on Ida’s hill

Thou there didst win the golden prize,
When beardless Paris felt a thrill

Go through him from thy azure eyes,
Down-glancing like the morning skies,
When all the world in sleep reposes,

Saving Aurora, who doth rise,

And to the wondering stars discloses
The couch that’s curtained round with roses.

72

LANGUAGE OF FLOWEKS.

Goddess of Love ! it is to thee
All earthly happiness we owe,

All bliss that mortals here can see,
Who at the shrine of beauty bow.
Thou askest but a woman’s vow,—-
That we shall love until life ends:

Upon our lips we swear it now—
And by each kiss that here descends,
May Hate seize him who but pretends.

FLOWERS OF THOUGHT.

73

FLOWERS OF THOUGHT.

IN SOLITUDE AND SILENCE YOU OCCUPY MY THOUGHTS,
SUCH IS MY DEVOTED ATTACHMENT.

Emblems.

SOLITUDE— HBATH: SILENCE —WHITE ROSE: THOUGHT—
PANSY: DEVOTED ATTACHMENT —HE LI 0 TR OPE.

“Juliet leaning

Amid her window-flowers,—sighing—weaning,
Tenderly her fancy, from its maiden snow,

Doth more avail than these : the silver flow
Of Hero’s tears, the swoon of Imogen,

Fair Pastorella in the bandit’s den,

Are things to brood on.’’— Keats’ Endymion.

“ There is Pansies,” said the sweet Ophelia;
“ that’s for thoughts but whether sad or pleasing
the immortal poet mentions not. For well did he
know that where so many hues were thrown upon
the face of one flower, Fancy would, according to
the feeling of the moment, trace out her own
favourite image. In the dark lines which diverge
and widen from the centre, spreading over the sub-

74

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

dued silver, branching across the yellow ground
of deepest gold, or blended and lost amid the dark
hues of the deepest purple. So would the thoughts
wander over the one, light and cheerful as the
floating silver of a summer cloud, or stumble over
the jagged splendour of glittering precipices, like
those piled heights which grow golden about the
dizzy summits of sunset, when the western slope of
heaven glows again with its burning range of up-
coned mountains, till over all the dark-blue purple
of the evening twilight gathers, and the shadows of
night settle thicker upon each other, and all the
land is dark. So might the unfettered thoughts,
wandering over the face of the Pansy, picture the
bright, and the golden, and the dark, which chequer
the ever-changing countenance of heaven, as hopes,
and joys, and fears, and sorrows, brighten and fade,
and blacken over the brief April sunshine of our
human existence.

All the old legends which were known about the
Pansy in ancient days are lost; excepting the one
preserved by Shakspeare, and woven into his inimit¬
able “Midsummer’s Night’s Dream,” wherein he tells
us how

“The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid,

Will make, or man or woman, madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.”

And who that has once read this matchless pro-

FLOWERS OF THOUGHT.

75

duction can ever forget the pleasing confusion it
makes amongst the lovers in the wood!

It was in those days—age of happy dreams!
—when armed knights rode forth in quest of ad¬
ventures, combated with mighty giants, and de¬
stroyed enchanted castles by one blast of their loud
bugle-horns—battled with dragons, and met with
beautiful and disconsolate maidens at the foot of
almost every grey and weather-beaten cross, wher¬
ever three lonely roads met together,— when the
cave of Merlin was visited by all who had courage
enough to look into the future, and King Arthur’s
Round Table was never without a gallant guest,—
it was then that they began to seek for signs, and
spells, and charms, and tokens, and all the awful
mysteries of divination, in the secret virtues of the
flowers. But most of all to the petals of the
Pansy did they turn their thoughts, and in its
freaked flowers seek to learn their destiny. If the
petal they plucked was pencilled with four lines,
it signified hope; if from the centre line started a
branch, when the streaks numbered five, it was still
hope, springing out of fear; and when the lines
were thickly branched, and leaned towards the left,
they foretold a life of trouble; but if they bent
towards the right, they were then supposed to
denote prosperity unto the end : seven streaks they
interpreted into .constancy in love, and if the centre

76

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

one was longest, they prophesied that Sunday
would be their wedding-day ; eight denoted fickle¬
ness; nine, a changing heart; and eleven — the
most ominous number of all — disappointment in
love, and an early grave. They called it no end of
endearing names ; such as Love - in - idleness,
Cuddle-me-to-you,—-Kiss-me-at-the-garden-gate,
Hearts’-ease,— Think-of-me,— Three-faces-under-a-
liood, — Jump-up-and-kiss-me,— and many others
equally expressive, which have yet to be culled out
of the pages of our oldest poets ; and this flower,
eyed like the bird of Juno, has ever been selected
as the emblem of the noblest faculty with which
mankind is gifted. After all its trivial appellatives
are exhausted, it stands up, bold and solemn, the
solitary flower of thought: the representative of that
silent messenger which in a moment is wafted over
wide seas, and to far-off foreign shores; that can
recall faces, and forms, and sights, and sounds, at

w ill,_daring even to soar on the wings of a Milton

into the presence of the Highest, and to picture the
halo of that blinding glory, before which the ranged
ranks of Heaven “ veil their faces with their wings.”
Plunging again fearlessly downward in a moment,
bidding unfathomable seas open, and fiery volcanoes
bare their nethermost depths, while, with feailess
eye, it surveys those vast realms where the fallen
angels writhe in the sweat of their great agony,

FLOWERS OF THOUGHT.

77

amid thunder and darkness, in that fathomless and
shoreless ocean of molten flames. Mysterious flower!
we know not at what hallowed font thou wert first
named, — whether thou wert christened in smiles or
tears,— or, amid the maimed rites of some heart¬
breaking ceremony, wert first named the everlasting
flower of undying thought.

The White Rose has long been considered as
sacred to Silence: over whatever company it was
suspended, no secrets were ever revealed, for it
hung only above the festal board of sworn friend¬
ship. No matter how deep they might drink, or
how long the wine-cup might circulate round the
table, so long as the White Rose hung over their
heads, every secret was considered inviolable; no
matter how trivial, or how important the trust,
beneath that flower it was never betrayed, for
around it was written the sentence—

“ HE WHO DOTH SECRETS REVEAL
BENEATH MY ROOF SHALL NEVER LIVE.”*

* Such is the emblem given to the White Hose, in an old work
entitled the “Bible Herbal,” and published at the close of the
sixteenth century — while Shakspeare himself was living.

78

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

What faith and what confidence must there have
been between man and man in the olden time,
when only the presence of a flower was needed to
prevent the maligning whisper—to freeze up slan¬
der’s hateful slime—and destroy that venom which,
when once circulated, proves so fatal to human
happiness! Beyond the circle to which the ex¬
pressive text was assigned, that wound about the
Bose, not a whisper wandered ; the pleasure only
was remembered, the painful word forgotten ere it
had gathered utterance—or if remembered at all,
it was only as having existed for a moment “ under
the Bose.” Truest test of friendship! inviolable
bond of brotherhood! Sacred altar, on which heart
was sworn to heart, thou didst need no golden
chains to bind thee to thy trust,—no solemn vow,
sworn hut to be broken,—nothing but a simple
White Bose to bind these men of true hearts and
strong faith together.

The Heath was well chosen as the emblem of
Solitude. It could scarcely be otherwise, adorning,
as it does, the lonely waste, and waving over weary
miles of desolate moorland, where scarcely a tree
breaks the long level line of the low hanging sky,
and a human habitation hut rarely heaves up to
cheer the monotony of the scene. It recalls many
a wild landscape: the bleak, broad mountain-side,
which throughout the long winter and the slow-

FLOWERS OF THOUGHT.

79

opening spring looked black and barren, till towards
the end of summer, when it was clothed everywhere
with the rich carpet of crimson and purple heather,
looking from the distance as if a sunshine, not of
earth, had come down and bathed the whole moun¬
tain steep in subdued and rosy light. The Heath
recalls scenes of solitude and of silence — vast plains
of immeasuiable extent, where only the wild bird
flaps its wings—spaces which when the sun has
traversed across, the day is ended, and upon the
wide outstretched plains you seethe night descend ;
it hiings before the eye still out-of-the-way scenes,
that go elbowing in where mighty woods meet to¬
gether, where the bramble trails, and the black¬
thorn grows, and the red fox sits before the shadow
of the steep bank, eyeing her young cubs as they
play together amongst the crimson Heath-bells,—
spots where lovers might sit and sigh away their
souls in each other s arms, without being disturbed
by even the foot of the solitary hunter; where the
light-footed deer would pace slowly along in his
heathery fastness, then bound off in a moment, with
all the fleetness of the wind, when he saw the form
of man intruding upon his forest habitation,—places
where the spotted snake basks securely at the foot
of the antique oak, while the long-tailed martin
pursues its prey among the gnarled and moss-
covered branches overhead,—where the little lizard

80

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

peeps securely from its hole, and the wild eat glares
with fiery eyes from the deepest solitude. Not that
Love can ever be solitary or alone, for around it are
floating sweet memories, eyes that hend tenderly
downwards, that fall sweeter than music upon the
ear, and looks that were kindled into sweet affection
by the warmth of love.

The Heliotrope, in floral language, is dedicated
to Devoted Attachment, a meaning synonymous to
that given to our English Woodbine or Honeysuckle,
in the language of flowers: it is a native of Peru,
and might he well spared from our Alphabet of
Love. Its smell is very overpowering in a close
room, and as such considered unhealthy. We know
no legend connected with it, nor any poem that has
been written in its praise ; we even doubt whether
it possesses the quality from which it was named —
that of turning towards the sun, both when it rose
and set. It belongs not to the flowers which are
twined around our memories—we find it not amongst
those that conjure up the days of our youth, when
Love but breathed in broken whispers, and the awed
tongue could not yet give utterance to the feelings
of the heart. Happy days! when even to sigh was
a pleasure, and the abashed lips found a rich banquet
whilst only feeding upon fancy,—when Love found a
May in every month, and the song of the nightingale
all the year long in her voice, that never breathed

FLOWERS OF THOUGHT.

81

without making the sweetest music,— when, as an
old poet, nearly three hundred years ago, in his
“ Golden Legacy,” beautifully said,—

“ Love in my bosom, like a bee.

Doth suck his sweet;

Now with his wings he plays with me.
Now with his feet ;

Within mine eyes he makes his nest,
His bed amid my tender breast.

My kisses are his daily feast,

And yet he robs me of my rest.

“ And if I sleep, then pierceth he
With pretty slight,

And makes his pillow of my knee
The live-long night;

Strike I my lute, he tunes the string;
He music plays if I but sing;

He lends me every lovely thing,

Vet, cruel he, my heart doth sting.”

82

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

PANSIES.

“ That’s for thoughts."

CHILDHOOD.

Sister, arise, the sun shines bright,

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 gather’d any flowers.

Time, who look’d on, each accent caught,
And said, “ He is too young for thought.”

YOUTH.

To-night beside the garden-gate ?

Oh, what a while the night is coming!

I never saw the sun so late,

Nor 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.”

PANSIES.

83

MANHOOD.

What thoughts wouldst thou in me awaken !

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.”

OLD AGE.

Somehow the flowers seem different now,
The Daisies dimmer than of old ;

There ’re fewer blossoms on the bough,

The Hawthorn buds look grey and cold ;
The Pansies wore another dye

When I was young—when I was youn^;:
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.”

84

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

THE DAISY OE THE DALE.

TOUR INNOCENCE AND SINCERITY WOULD MAKE
RETIREMENT HAPPY.

Emblems.

INNOCENCE— DATSY: SINCERITY — FERN: HAPPY
RETIREMENT — WILD IIA REBELL.

“When that the month of May
Is coming, and that I do hear the birds sing.

And that the flowers begin to spring.

Farewell my book and my devotion :

Now have I then, too, this condition,

That, of the flowers in the mead,

Then I love most those flowers, white and red,

Such that men call daisies in our town.”

Written by Chaucer nearly 500 years ago.

Beautiful are the fields of England powdered
over with Daisies, as Chaucer happily termed it
nearly five hundred years ago,—those emblems of
innocence — companions of the milk-white lambs —

\

s

THE DAISY OF THE DALE.

85

the first heavings of the awakening bosom of Spring.
Majestic are the remains of our old English forests,
where around the battered and weather-beaten
stems of the primitive oaks, the broad, fan-like
leaves of the Fern spread; showing how sincerely
they still adhere to the ancient soil which first
nourished them, and that, amid the great revolutions
of departed ages, they still stand there,—true, but
lowly emblems of Sincerity,— marking out the spot
where England’s mighty forests once spread. There
it grew when the maned bison went thundering
through the thick underwood, when the wolf made
his lair at the foot of the primitive oak, and the
tusked boar roamed free from the spear of the
hunter. Ages before the son of Acadd came over
the misty ocean and called our island the Country
of Sea-cliffs, the fern grew broad and green as it
does now. And in those solitudes, where human
voice was then seldom heard, the tender and
trembling Harebell grew, ever waving its delicate
cups if the hushed wind but breathed in its sleep
Fitly was it named the Happiness of Retirement—
the beauty of solitude—the graceful inhabitant of
still and lonely places; for when a silence hung
over the unexplored depths of our woodland fast¬
nesses, it was still there.

It was one day, after a weary flight from a far-off
foreign shore, that Love alighted with a sprig of

SG

LANGUAGE OE FLOWERS.

graceful Fuchsia in his hand, and, sitting down
beneath the shadow of a gigantic oak in a lonely
forest-glade, he took up the broad-leaved Fern to fan
and cool himself, for the air around was hot. Then
throwing it down across his bow, he stretched
himself upon the greensward, and, playing idly with
one of his arrows, he thoughtlessly cut down the
blue Harebells and tall white Daisies which grew
around him, with the point of his weapon, until
startled from his musing and listless mood by the
sound of the bugle-horn, and the baying of dogs in
the distance, he sprang up hurriedly from his velvet
couch, gathered together his bow and arrows, and
the handful of flowers at random, and flew off into
another solitude far away from the clamorous din
of the hunters. It was then that his eye first
alighted upon the group of flowers which he had in
his hand. On the broad, green background of the
Fern rested the sky-dyed Harebells; before these,
like a cluster of stars, spread the white Daisies,
while over all drooped the scarlet cups of the
Fuchsia in elegant festoons; and he smiled as he
looked at the graceful finish which the drooping
Fuchsia gave to the wild flowers that represented
Innocence and Retirement, and the broad Fern that
grew up of its own accord, a true image of Old
Sincerity.

Through the dew of many a spring morning, ere

THE DAISY OF THE DALE.

87

the sun had climbed above the summit of the
distant hill, while only the skylark beat the blue
and vaulted dome of heaven, and with her song
wakened the sleeping landscape, had Love wandered
forth alone, to watch the Daisies unfold; and so
deeply was he enamoured of their innocence, he all
day long had often sat upon the sloping hill-side,
that he might behold them wave to and fro,— now
turning their golden bosses towards the sun, then
bending forward and showing the green cup from
whidi sprang each pink and pearly rim, that starred
them round like a halo of light. Until the grey
twilight would he linger there and watch the buds
fold themselves up for the night until they looked
like lounded pearls, each placed apart, and when
the pale white moon rose up above the dark line
of trees that crowned the hill, he would watch the
flooded light break over the scene, and breathe a
blessng on the lovely flowers while they slept.

01, Love! why didst thou not linger behind to
see tiat gay cavalcade pass ? for there was a form
whici thou mightest have mistaken, hadst thou not
knovn her, for Diana the huntress of the woods;
for rever did the morning, as it looks down upon
the -thousands of beautiful eyes which open beneath
it, light up two such floating orbs of love, as those
whidi glittered beneath that swan-white brow, and
swan under the nut-brown ringlets of the Daisy

88

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

of the Dale. Never did arm more exquisitely
moulded or gracefully formed guide the reins of
a milk-white palfrey ; or forest-nymph more lovely
cleave the morning air in her flight, than she who
sat, sole queen of the chase, light as a bird upon her
rounded saddle. The very hawk which was perched
upon her wrist seemed to look into her face with
love, and when he hovered high in the air in pursuit
of the quarry he needed no other lure than the Hue
heaven of her eyes to bring him back again to his
stand. Even in the banquet-hall of her father’s
ancient castle, when the stormy and mail-clad sons
of war sat around the board, talking of moats they
had crossed, and turrets they had scaled, o: the
lances they had shivered, and the helmets their
heavy battle-axes had cloven, if they but once leard
her light foot upon the dais, their conversation was
changed to that of love, instead of war,— such soft¬
ness breathed around the presence of the Daisy of
the Dale. She seemed like the Spirit of leace
alighting in the midst of those armed warriors ipon
a mission of Love — as if the white folds oi her
floating tunic were a more impenetrable amour
than the linked mail in which their sinewy l’mbs
were sheathed, and the rim of Daisies which vere
twined within the silken braid that fettered her
floating ringlets, a safer helmet than any that was
ever wrought out of steel, three times whitened

DROOPING DAISY.

83

in the red heat of the blinding furnace: for it was
such beauty as she possessed that first softened
down the fierce spirit of English chivalry, and
tamed the savage grandeur of feudal warfare. Love
had before seen her when, sad and pensive, she
paced the garden after her mother’s death, when
the youthful knight she loved was absent, but so
wan and w r oe-begone was she then, that he would
scarcely have recognised in the angelic form on the
palfrey the

DROOPING DAISY.

Beside a richly sculptured urn,

The Daisy of the Dale was kneeling,

The tears were down her fair cheeks stealing,
And many an outward sign revealing
How deeply her young heart did mourn ;

She held a portrait to her breast,

And sighing said, “ Oh, be at rest!

Hush, heart! he will again return.”

Her glance upon the picture fell,

She kissed the face she loved so well,
Now she turned red, again was pale,
Just like the Daisy of the Dale,

90

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

Whose rim is ruffled by the gale,

When red and white in turn are seen,
Coming and going through the green
Of the ever-waving grass.

A silken scarf that lady wore,—

’Twas picked up on a distant moor,

Only a day or so before,

And there the battle had been fought —

A faithful squire the token brought—

The young knight he in vain had sought.

“ I wove him this. On this he swore,”
The Daisy said, “ I’ll think no more!

Dim doubts before my vision pass.”

“ And yet when I this token see,

And think what nights these wakeful eyes
Bent o’er its dim embroidery,

Painful emotions will arise,

Such as I felt not till we parted,—

Such as but spring from doubts and fears,
And make the bearer broken-hearted,
Through nights of sighs and days of tears.

“ Perhaps for me he cares not now,

Nor heeds either my tears or sighing,
Perchance he has forgot my vow!

Forgive me, Heaven ! he may be dying,

DROOPING DAISY.

91

And no one near ! Oh, misery!

Breathing my name with his last breath !
And yet his image smiles on me.

Away ! — I will not think of Death.

“ No ! he will live to wear this token.

Hush, heart! be still, why dost thou sigh ?
I will not think his vow is broken,—

I’ll not believe it, though I die.

This scarf doth bring back many a scene
Of happiness amid those bowers,

Our walks along these alleys green,

When love was sweeter than the flowers.

“ I marked these comers with my hair
I wove his name along with mine,

Letter with letter twined with care,
Hoping that so our hearts would twine ;
Oh, Hope ! delusive Hope ! ’tis Time
Alone that proves thee a deceiver:

Thou bringest buds of promised prime,

But the keen frost attends thee ever.

“ Oh ! I am sadly altered now,

My summer’s changed to winter’s gloom,

I’ve torn the Daisies from my brow,

And hung them on my mother’s tomb,

92

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

I seem upon a pathless sea,

A lonely ark that still remains,

Doomed to glide on in misery,

And float alone with all its pains.

“ Oh ! I have loved, and still I love,

And yet my life is like a dream :

I look around—below—above,

And thoughts like hovering shadows seem,
Clouds drifting o’er the face of Heaven,
That float along in loose array,

The dark and bright together driven,

And mingling but to pass away.

“ And Love still lives, though Hope is fled,
And Memory that brings no delight.
Telling of Spring, whose flowers are shed,
A weary day long changed to night,

A music all in mournful tone,

Sounding awake, and heard asleep,

A solemn dirge that rings alone,

To tell me I am doomed to weep.

“ Though he is false I will not chide,

I feel my heart is all to blame,

And though I may not be his bride,

Lut see another bear that name,

DROOPING DAISY.

S3

Yet will I pray that every blessing ;—
Alas! I cannot pray for weeping.

A coldness round my heart is pressing,
A tremor through my veins is creeping.

“ Oh ! I am weary of my life ;

My eyes with weeping have grown weary,
Nature too long hath been at strife,

My very thoughts to me are dreary.

Oh! I am weary of the day,

And wish again that it were night:

Night comes, I wish it were away—■

It goes, I’m weary of the light.”

She on that marble urn did rest,

’Twas sacred to her mother’s name,

She clasped its coldness to her breast,

She called on death, but no death came;
The grave is far too cold for Love :

Why should it sleep within a tomb,

When for its mate the wand’ring dove
But coos amid the forest gloom ?

She paused, she heard a distant sound,

Like war-horse tramp it shook the ground ;
The jingling ring of arms drew near,

She drew her breath ’tween hope and fear.

04

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

Oh, Mary, thanks! her own true knight
Did from his foam-flecked steed alight.

Though loss of blood had left him pale,

He kissed the Daisy of the Dale.

Her beauty on another occasion saved her father’s
fortress from the burning brand of the besiegers,
when the castle was beleaguered during the wars
between the rival houses of York and Lancaster,
and when her lover was compelled to mingle
amongst the assailants.

On the battlements the cross-bowmen had pe¬
rished one by one, shot down by the unerring aim
of the archers who were assembled without the
moat, and whose arrows went whistling through
every opening of the embrasures, wherever a de¬
fender appeared. The gates of the outer barbican
were already carried, the chains by which the draw¬
bridge was uplifted had been severed by the stout
blows of a battle-axe, and had fallen down with a
thundering and heavy crash across the deep waters
of the moat, while throughout the chambers of the
inner keep, echoed at intervals the measured sound
of the mighty battering-ram, as it threatened at
every blow to carry from their hinges the iron-
studded doors which swung between the grey old
towers; the last defence that stood between the
besiegers and the castle. But if every blow which

THE DAISY OF THE DALE.

shook that ancient archway went through the heart
of the fair inhabitant within, it did not fall less
lightly on that of one of the young assailants with¬
out, knocking against his armour; while, under the
stern eye of his unbending father, he hesitated for
a moment to obey his commands, as he stood with
his foot upon the scaling-ladder, which was already
planted before the tall turret. He felt the wreath
of Daisies, that was crushed and concealed beneath
the weight of his hauberk, and fastened behind his
gorget with a white silken band, biting into his
flesh, like so many barbed arrow-heads of pointed
steel; and when he had gained the summit, and
leaped upon the undefended battlements of the
turret, by the strength of his own youthful arm,
and the aid of a mighty lever, he hurled back the
scaling-ladder with the besiegers upon it, which
snapped in two as it fell thundering upon the
drawbridge, then lay, broken, and floating, upon
the waters of the moat. “Rash boy!” exclaimed
his father, as he looked up, the flashing anger of
his eye somewhat softened while he stood astonished
at so daring and unexpected a deed: “ An I once
gain possession of the gates, I will put the strongest
donjon-keep between thee and that pale-faced maiden
for whose sake thou hast done this.” But the young
lover waited not a moment to listen to what he
said, for, flying to the chamber of his mistress he

OS

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

pointed out the way by which she might escape;
telling her that his trusty squire and page were
awaiting, with swift and surefooted steeds, at the
secret postern behind the castle: that it was her
alone his father sought to capture, that he might
prevent their being united; and so, after a few
tears, a few smiles, a few sighs, and unnumbered
kisses, he succeeded in carrying off the Daisy of the
Dale. The few followers who remained alive sallied
with her out of the narrow postern, and went forth
without a murmur to share the weal or woe of
their beloved mistress ; for her father was then
afar off, fighting under the banner of his lawful
sovereign.

Picture the rage and the astonishment of the
old knight, when he had succeeded in beating the
battered doors off their hinges, and discovered that
the bird he sought to capture had flown, and that
his son was nowhere to be found. Thrice did he
order the castle to be burnt and razed to the
ground ; then, before a brand was lighted, counter¬
manded the charge in the same breath : for as he
stalked sullenly from chamber to hall, he everywhere
met with some object that recalled the remem¬
brance of his youthful days, when, sworn in the
solemn bond of friendly brotherhood with her father^
they had in their younger years been the first to
plunge into the foremost ranks of battle together.

THE DAISY OF THE DALE.

97

He reached her bower or tiring-room, and saw the
velvet cushion, the open missal, and the ivory cru¬
cifix,—the coif adorned with Daisies, which, in her
haste, she had thrown upon the floor, while over
all was suspended the portrait of her mother. And
, as he sat down in the high-backed and heavy oaken
chair, he rested with one hand on the hilt of his
ponderous sword, and pressing to his brow the
gauntleted palm of the other, exclaimed, “ Pretty
sweeting! I have done thee grievous wrong thus to
drive thee from thy bower, even at the very moment,
perchance, when thou wert at thy devotions. Well,
well! after all he has but done as I myself would—
I have won the empty casket, and he has carried off
the prize ; and to have won it, the brave young dog
would no more have minded cracking my old crown
with the scaling-ladder, than a red squirrel minds
splitting open a ripe hazel-nut to get at the kernel
within. By Saint Swithin ! how the mailed rascals
tumbled into the moat! I could have laughed if I
had not been an angered, to have seen Black Ralph
swimming like a duck in his heavy armour ; and as
for Hubert, my henchman, I scarce could draw the
helmet off his ears, so tightly was it fitted on when
he pitched with his head upon the drawbridge. By
our Lady! he is a bold and a daring knave, and
hath as great a love for this Daisy as ever Chaucer
had, maugre all the choice rhymes he hath made

H

98

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

about it.” And the worthy old knight laughed so
heartily, as he pictured his followers splashing
about in the moat, that his visor slipped down, and
he was compelled to call on his esquire to unbuckle
the fastenings of his helmet.

Pass we over the long ride of the young lovers,
followed by their attendants, through the wild
avenues of the forest, the couch which the Knight
made among the broad-leaved Fern when the Daisy
of the Dale was weary, and the blue Harebells that
nodded about her beautiful head while she slept.
Love was their guide, and lighted their way through
the darksome forest-paths ; guiding them over many
a wild wold and lonely moor, and beside many a
reedy mere, until he brought them beneath the
walls of the city where her father was encamped.
Wroth was that old knight when he heard that his
castle was besieged, and he vowed, by the blood of
the blessed Martyr of Canterbury, that from dungeon-
floor to turret-steep, he would not leave one stone
above the other when he reached the stronghold of
his enemy. But when the wars of the Boses were
over, the king wrote a “ broad letter,” with his own
hand, to which he affixed his royal seal, and de¬
spatched it by a messenger; and instead of foes, the
two old knights became friends, even as they were
in the days of their youth. And the sounds which
startled Love in the forest were the monarch and his

THE DAISY OF THE DALE.

99

retainers, and the two old knights, and their fol¬
lowers, and a great concourse of people, who had
sallied out from the castle, and were going to hunt
the noblest hart they could find in the thicket, and
to honour by their presence the marriage ceremony
of “ The Daisy of the Dale.”

The Daisy was Chaucer’s favourite flower ; and
never since hath bard done it such reverence as
the venerable father of English poetry. All worship,
saving his own, is that of words only : his is the
adoration of a heart which overflowed with love for
the Daisy. He tells us how he rose with the sun
to watch this beautiful flower first open, and how
he knelt beside it again in the evening to watch
its starry rim close; that the Daisy alone could
allure him from his study and his books, and, when
he had exhausted all his stores of beautiful imagery
in its praise, his song was ever ready to burst out
anew as he exclaimed, “ Oh, the daisy, it is sweet! ”
for his sake it ought to have been selected as
the emblem of Poetry, and throughout all time
called “ Chaucer’s flower.” For our part we never
wander forth into the fields in spring to look for
it, without picturing Chaucer, in his old costume,
resting on his “ elbow and his side,” as he many

100

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

a time had done, paying lowly reverence to this
old English flower, which he happily called, “ The
Eye of Day.”

The Ilarehell we have already alluded to as be¬
longing to the order of Campanula, and it has been
well chosen, in floral language, as the emblem of
Happy Retirement. It is one of the most beautiful
of all our Autumn wildflowers, adorning the sides of
woods and shady places with its delicate bells of
blue, clear and pure as ever hung upon the azure
face of heaven.

It flowers when the dark green leaves that gar¬
landed the rosy summer begin to show upon their
edges the waning yellow of Autumn : when on the
skirts of the forest, we can trace those pleasing hues
which are too delicate to live long, that, like the
roses on the flushed cheek of the consumptive
maiden, look more beautiful as the hectic tint
deepens that announces the approach of Death.
The Harebell still blows when on the oak, the elm,
the chestnut, and the fir, we see the gloomy green,
the burnished bronze, the faded yellow, and the dull
red, lighted up between the masses of foliage that
glitter like gold, all mingled and blended together
so richly and harmoniously, that in the distance we
cannot tell where the dusky green of the fir begins,
nor the yellow of the chestnut fades away. Then
leaves of all hues fall fast, and bury the little flowers

THE DAISY OF THE DALE.

101

which perished amongst the most beautiful that
have formed a couch for the declining Summer to
ie down and die upon, while other leaves still hang
upon the houghs, until they are withered and
shrunken by the cold and hollow winds of Autumn,
when they fall and bury the Harebell after it is
dead.

“ While shadows of the silver birch
Sweep the green above its grave.”

The Fuchsia we leave to the florist; neither its
name, nor the quality it is chosen to represent,
have any English sound about them. Taste, saving
in allusion to the palate, to us has longed smacked
of dilettanteism—it was a good word before so
many good-natured twaddlers rendered it common ;
middle-tint admirers and murderers of Mozart, and
pretty verse-makers, have so crowded the temple-
gates of Taste, that many, who really possess it, are
ashamed of owning to so amiable a weakness, and
flatly declare that taste they have none. Mem .— Our
shaft is only feathered at Pretenders, to which class
the fair sex but seldom belong.

The very name of the Fern calls up the forest,
where it still lives on, though ages ago the mighty
oaks have been felled—there it still spreads, true
to its native soil, the hardy image of deep-rooted
Sincerity. Even where forests have been uprooted,
and the stately deer swept away, still the fan-like

102

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

Fern throws its dark-green arms over the spot,
unchanged by the changes of long centuries. It is
associated with our oldest fairy legends,— creations
of some old forgotten poet’s fancy, that in

“The middle-summer’s spring
Met on hill, in dale, forest, or by mead.

By favoured fountain, or by rushy brook.

Or on the beachbd margin of the sea,

And danced their ringlets to the whistling wind.”

And our simple ancestors believed that they had
but to find the true “ Fern seed,” and carry it about
with them, to become invisible. What would not
a fond lover give for a packet of this fabulous seed,
that he might at any hour steal unperceived into
the presence of his mistress ? But, alas! the secret
was carried away with the fairies, when they were
driven, with bell, book, and candle, from the green
and daisied meadows of merry England.

DAISIES.

“ The daisy it is sweet Chaucer.

’T was when the world was in its prime,

When meadows green and woodlands wild
Were strewn with flowers, in sweet spring-time,
And everywhere the Daisies smiled ;

DAISIES.

103

When undisturbed the ringdoves cooed,
While lovers sang each other’s praises,

As in embower’d 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.”

104

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

’T was then the flowers were haunted
With fairy forms and lovely things,

Whose beauty elder bards have chaunted,

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.

Tney spared the star that lit their feet,

The Daisy was so very sweet.

LEGEND OF THE FLOWER-SPIRITS.

105

LEGEND 0i THE FLOWER-SPIRITS.

YOUR FIDELITY AND CANDOUR HAVE WON MY
AFFECTION.

Emblems.

FIDELITY— WALLFLOWER: CANDOUR —WHITE VIOLET:
AFFECTION — WOODBINE.

Sweet shapes were there—the Spirits of the Flowers ;

Sent down to see the summer-beauties dress,

And feed their fragrant mouths with silver showers;

Their eyes peeped out from many a greeu recess,

And their fair forms made light the thick-set bowers;

The very flowers seemed eager to caress
Such living sisters,—and the boughs, long-leaved,

Clustered to catch the sighs their pearl-flushed bosoms heaved.

Beautiful Woodbine! thou art the fairest lady
of the wildwood — the tall white watcher of the
forest! the first to wave thy sun-dyed fingers, and
tell to the fragrant flowers which sleep beneath thy
feet that the God of Day has once more wheeled
up his golden chariot, and unrolled his banner of

106

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

crimson clouds, above the rim of the distant
horizon. Bride of the wood—beloved of the green-
waving trees! even the giant oak enfolds thee with
a fond embrace, and hugs thee in its iron arms with
a gentle pressure. The hooked bramble wooeth
thee to twine lovingly between its thorns, and the
graceful hazel uplifteth thee on high in its green arms,
as if to show thy beautiful tiara of flowers to the
surrounding underwood. Around the green elm dost
thou ring thy lovely arms, and breathest thy sweet
breath in the bosom of the hoary hawthorn, when
all its milk-white blossoms have wandered away, or
lie withering at the roots of the many-hued flowers
of Summer. Over wide solitudes, where the gorse,
and the broom, and the fern, stretch far,—where
the tangling brier, and the piercing sloe, and the
armed holly, bid defiance to the footstep of the
wayfarer,—there dost thou sit, with thy fair face
looking out from thy turret surrounded with leaves,
like a lovely lady imprisoned in some impregnable
castle, that stands in the midst of a savage and
impenetrable forest.

It was soon after the creation of the world, when
the hand of Nature had roughed out its mighty
work ; had thrown the mountains ruggedly together,
and broad-cast the flowers over the hills and valleys,
that lesser powers were appointed to arrange them
in order and harmony; — when winged attendants

LEGEND OF THE FLOWER-SPIRITS.

107

were placed over the woods, and fair forms drew
out the lines in which the bending watercourses
were to run, while the most beautiful spirits, that
kept watch and ward over the gardens of heaven,
were sent down to superintend, and give the
finishing strokes of beauty to the flowers. From
many that were gaudy in colour and graceful in
form they took away the fragrance, transferring
their perfume to lowlier flowers, whose loveliness
would have been overlooked, had not sweetness been
added to their beauty.

The blossom of the Woodbine was thrown aside
pale and neglected, until one fair spirit took it up,
and breathed into it an odour which she had brought
from the opening blossoms of Eden ; another took
up her palette, on which was spread out every hue
of the rainbow, and gave to the pallid Woodbine
a golden and crimson hue ; while a third squeezed
into its cup a drop of the sweetest honey; and a
fourth, around whose slender waist were twined
trailing stems of every form, took out the longest
and fastened to it the head of the beautiful Wood¬
bine. Tall and graceful did she arise from her seat
when she had finished, and twisted it gracefully
around her, and as the sun-stained flower rested
upon the parted amber of her ringlets she exclaimed,
“ I will exalt this flower over every blossom of the

108

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

wild woodland ; whatsoever ye plant, it shall still
overtop, until its fragrant head is buried and lost
amid the green foliage of the trees. All the sweet
odours of summer shall float around its feet, and
it shall receive homage from every flower of the
forest.

“ Stop, beautiful sister,” said another fair spirit,
pointing upward her white finger with an arch look,
as she rose from the high pile of flowers by which
she was surrounded : “ seest thou that old grey
naked rock, which stood like a lonely ruin, even
amid the silence and darkness of Chaos? for
many a day had I looked upon it with an eye of
pity as it stood there, grand in its very solitariness,
majestic in its own desolation, and looking noble,
though bearing the impress of ruin. Hovering
around it in the early sunbeams of morning, I
thought how its cold aged bosom might be com¬
forted if I threw but a handful of flowers there,
and I guessed aright. Sister, look up, and behold
how beautifully those wild Wallflowers wave ; even
the banded bee hath winged his way to that dizzy
height, allured by their surpassing sweetness. I
will not dispute with thee the tall sovereignty over
the flowers of the forest, but wherever a grey ruin
rears, though it reaches even to the foot of the low,
dark thunder-clouds, there shall the fragrant Wall-

LEGEND OF THE FLOWER-SPIRITS.

109

flower wave,—humble, but high over all,— the ever¬
lasting emblem of Fidelity throughout all change.”

“ Nor shall its influence end there,” said the
superintending spirit, rising like a tall angel as she
spoke, from amid her sister-spirits of the flowers.
“ I will give it a greater power: it shall stand up
like a landmark between the past and the present;
it shall recall images of beauty which have faded
away, and, throughout unnumbered ages, stand like
a sage moralist, proclaiming to the children of
men how fleeting is all earthly splendour; it shall
lift the mind to the contemplation of an imperish¬
able immortality, and raise the thoughts to another
world, where beauty decayeth not, and where the
blushing cheek of Happiness is never touched by
the pale finger of sorrow. Wherever the Wood¬
bine is seen it shall denote Affection, — the de¬
votedness of a fond heart, that clings unto what
it loveth until it dies; but it shall not outlive
the object to which it is wedded, for, when once
untwined from its affectionate embrace, it shall
wither and pine, and die away, and be no more.
Not so with the Wallflower: when all beside have
perished and decayed, when the carved and vaulted
roof has mouldered away, when the tall turret has
fallen, stone by stone, and crumbled into dust, it
shall still wave above the mound of buried ruins, like
Beauty bending over, and silently contemplating

110

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

Desolation; the emblem of faithfulness in adversity,
the garland with which Time shall enwreath the
grey piles of silent and untrodden ruins, which in
his devastating march he has overturned.”

As many of the flowers thus passed through their
hands, they gave to them some new charm which
they had never before possessed ; sometimes varying
and mingling their fragrances together, and throw¬
ing a warm, pearly flush, over what was before of a
pale and deathly hue. They gave a pale blush to
the blossoms of the Hawthorn, and pressed the
white roses to their cheeks, until they left on them
every tinge, from the warm tint of Beauty to the
lily-whiteness of their own swan-like necks. Into
some of the Violets they looked, until they partook
of the hue of their own deep-blue eyes ; and others,
which were before of a dark purple, they buried
in their own snowy bosoms, until they faded into
a pearly white, then laughingly planted them again
in the ground, causing them for ever to partake of
the candour, and sweetness, and innocence of the
tender hearts on which they were first nursed, and
the; gentle spirit by whose purity their colour was
changed. Round the Daisy, whose edge before was
a white unbroken rim, they clipped the ridge into
the star-like silver which it now wears, and called
it the Eye of Day. They picked up the smallest
Primroses they could find, and, planting them upon

LEGEND OF THE FLOWER-SPIEITS.

Ill

one stem, spotted their centres with the deepest
crimson, and thus formed the Cowslip. They copied
the colours of the golden-banded bees and shaped
the flowers of the Orchis after the form of the in¬
sect : not a winged butterfly flew past that escaped
their eyes:—they transferred to the blossoms the
hues of its deep-dyed wings. They swept up all
the waste and sweetest blossoms that had blown
together, crushing them in the hand until they
formed a solid clump of cream-coloured flowers,
and so made the Meadow-sweet, that the fields
might still be laden with the perfume of May,
when the bloom had flown from off the Hawthorn,
and resolved itself into one of Summer’s unseen
perfumes. They made the large Marsh Marigold
to plant beside high-banked streams, that in the
water the deep gold of the flowers might be re¬
flected, giving them a sun of their own to throw
its cheerful and yellow light upon the ripples, in
those deep, shadowy, and out-of-the-way places,
which the sunshine of heaven hut seldom visits.
And unto all these they gave presiding powers,
emblems, and virtues, and mysterious meanings;
many of which Love never recovered again, when he
set out on his pilgrimage to visit the Shrines of the
Flowers. And ever as they formed the flowers, and
strung the beaded buds together upon the stems,
and perfumed the petals with odours which they

112

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

had gathered in the gardens of heaven, their voices
blended together as they chanted the lays brought
from another world

SONG OF THE FLOWER-SPIRITS.

Sister, sister, what dost thou twine ?

I am weaving a wreath of the wild woodbine ;

I have streak’d it without like the sunset hue, \
And silver’d it white with the morning dew :

And there is not a perfume which on the breeze blows
From the lips of the Pink or the mouth of the Rose,
That’s sweeter than mine—that’s sweeter than
mine —

I have mingled them all in my wild Woodbine.

White watcher of blossoms, what weavest thou?

I am stringing the Hawthorn-buds on a green bough;
I have dyed them with pearl, and stolen the flush
Of the dawn from the hills, in the morning’s faint
blush;

And the odours they breathe of, to me were first
given

By an angel I knew in the gardens of heaven :

And Love, should he ever remember the tale,

Shall tell how I perfumed the May of the vale.

SONG OF THE FLOWER-SPIRITS.

113

Beautiful spirit, why dost thou sigh ?

Sad thoughts float about me, like clouds on the sky,
Of the false vows that may on these blossoms be
sworn,

Of the Rose that will wither, and leave but the thorn:
Of hopes that may live after Love is long dead,

Like the stem left behind when the flower is shed
And that is the cause why I sigh — why I sigh —
To think that the heart must be broken, to die.

Sister, sister, what hast thou found
Half hidden amid the green leaves on the ground?
They are the dim Violets, daughters of Spring,
Deeper dyed than the blue of the butterfly’s wing 5
Yet modest as Love in the bud of the Rose,

TV hen the gieen can no longer its blushes enclose :
All the perfumes I’ve tried in the buds that I
wreathe,

Yet found none half so sweet as the one that they
breathe.

Beautiful spirit, why dost thou weep ?

For the death and decay that come swifter than
sleep;

For the Rose which my blushes at morn dyed with
red,

That by night, in the full bloom of beauty, was dead.

1

114

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

For the beautiful lips they will to it compare,

For the cheeks that will fade be they never so fair:
They are mortal, sweet sister: here Death severs
love,—

Lasting beauty but lives in the gardens above.

The Wallflower is aptly chosen as the emblem
of Fidelity, and is commonly found growing amid
ancient ruins, when all besides that was beautiful
has passed away and perished. For year after year
does it fade and blow without the aid of man : we
might almost fancy that the spirits of the departed
tended them, that over the mouldering battlements,
which for ages no human foot hath climbed, the
invisible forms of the early daughters of England
floated in the still noon of night, and trained these
fragrant emblems of Fidelity in Misfortune,—these
golden guardians of tower and keep. On many a
silent mound, seldom visited by man, have these
old English flowers waved throughout long centuries,
scattering their perfume over what is now a solitude,
but where in former times, hawk, and hound, and
pawing palfrey, and lady fair, and youthful knight,
and long trains of attendants, gathered with light
heart and merry laugh, to start the heron from the

THE WALLFLOWER.

115

reedy mere, or rouse the antlered stag in the forest.
To us the Wallflower seems to belong to a bye-gone
age.

Nor less beautiful or ancient is the Woodbine or
Honeysuckle, with its richly-turned petals, that
arch back more gracefully than the broad plumes
of the ostrich. It tapers its pale gold and crimson-
streaked flowers above the heads of the rugged
brambles, ornamenting whatever it clings to, or
climbs above, and, like the Violet, sweetens the very
air on which it lives. It has become entwined
about our rural poetry as a lasting image of Affec¬
tion and Contentment: is linked with the thatched
roof and the rustic porch of the peaceful cottage,
over which it keeps silent watch like the sentinel of
Love. In one of our old simple ballads the Lover
endeavours to entice his fair by telling her that his
home is embowered by this lady of the wikhvood,
and says,—

My cottage with woodbine’s o’ergrown.

The sweet turtle-doves coo around:

My flocks and my herds are my own.

And my pastures with hawthorns are bound.

116

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

THE QUEEN OE MAY.

HOPE AND DESIRE BREAK MY REPOSE, AND HAVE
CALLED FORTH THIS DECLARATION OF LOVE.

Emblems.

HOPE— HAWTHORN: DESIRE—I VHITE JONQUIL: REPOSE
— CONVOLVULUS: DECLARATION OF LOVE — TULIP.

’T was May-day morn, nor had a lovelier day
From out the eastern chambers e’er been given.
The lark had left the heath and flown away.
Singing, into the clear dome of heaven;

The bee went round to tell the flowers ’t was May.

The beautiful Hawthorn has been selected, as
well as the Snowdrop, for the emblem of Hope ;
and there are few but can recall with delight the
healthy fragrance which has cheered them, while
wandering between the green hedgerows of England.
Our old poets, as if despairing to find a fitting

THE QUEEN OF MAY.

117

name for this fragrant blossom, have called it May,
after one of the pleasantest months in the whole
year; for to them that word conjured up the season
of poetry — the month of flowers, and was fraught
with associations of all that is bright and beautiful
in the earth : for there are but few objects that
strike the eye with greater delight than the rural
hedgerows which stretch for miles throughout our
country, and are at the close of spring flushed
over with the pink-white blossoms of May. In the
olden time our ancestors did homage to this season
of flowers, and went out with songs and music to
“ bring home May.” They erected arbours of green
branches, they selected a beautiful maiden and
crowned her Queen of May, they placed her upon
a throne of flowers, they wreathed her brow with
blossoms, and danced around her, and they hung
the tall tapering Maypole with gay garlands of
variegated colours. Even kings and queens left
their palaces, the proud baron rode out from under
the dark-browed archway of his feudal castle, the
fair lady deserted her bower, and the brave knight,
with his plumes dancing in the wind, mounted on
his prancing war-horse, rode beside the white palfrey
of his lady-love, and so they went forth, throwing
their titles and dignities for once aside, to “ do
observance to the May.” Through green winding
lanes, and the bridle-paths of old hoary forests, the

118

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

merry cavalcade went on, singing “ How sweet is
flowery May ! ”

Surely we err in calling these the dark and
barbaric ages, while they paid such worship to the
flowers. Although they might lack the light of
that knowledge which has since broken out and
illuminated the earth, still they had a fine taste
for the beautiful—a simple and earnest adoration
for the lovely flowers of the field : and wherever
such a feeling exists, whether in the palace or in
the cottage, it points out a refined mind, an elegant'
perception, and a heart alive to all that is pure
and beautiful. How natural that so sweet-scented
and common a blossom should be selected as the
image of Hope! for who could behold it without
trusting that there were still better days in store ?
The disappointed or separated lover, while wander¬
ing in the cool shadows of green lanes, would, as
he inhaled its fragrance, feel a new kind of joy
breaking through the dark despondency of the heart,
and hear hope again whisper that the time might
come when she, whose presence had hallowed with
love every pathway he traversed, should again be
his companion, and make those rural rambles the
happiest hours of his existence. The fair maiden,
pale with love,—the citadel of whose heart had
been stormed and won, only to be deserted and left
desolate,—mightfind some comfort while wandering

THE QUEEN OF MAT.

119

forth among the hedges crowned with May—some
momentary pleasure in the remembrance of what
had been ; and fondly hope that he who had crushed
her heart, would return again, sorrowful and con¬
trite, and heal the aching wound which he had
made. Amid this sad hope she would send forth
a sigh over the landscape, as she gazed upon some
thatched and tranquil cottage, which stood half
buried amid the dreamy rustling of the trees, covet¬
ing so calm a retreat, centered amid the beauties
of nature, and surrounded by sequestered paths
which led to the homes of hundreds of flowers:
for such sweet solitudes does Grief pine for. Such
retiring places are sought after by wounded love,
who looks for companionship amongst the mute
flowers, and breathes her sorrows and her hopes
into the listening blossoms, as if believing that the
ministering spirits which are sent down to comfort
and cheer the broken-hearted, have taken up their
abode amidst these green and silent retreats ; as
if she there hoped to find that repose which has
so long been broken, and to rest after her love
had been wrecked, on the very shore where she
trusted to find such secure anchorage. Nor is the
sweetness of Love found alone in the possession,
no more than pleasure can for ever exist without
the alloy of pain ; for as a brief separation enhances
the happiness and anticipation of the meeting— aa

120

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

a gentle shower throws a richer odour over the
summer landscape, so do the many fears which ever
hang like blossoms upon the tender spray of Love
tremble before every breath that blows, lest it should
sweep off some cherished bloom. And ever upon
the ear falls the melancholy truth of “ all that’s fair
must fade;” that Love is ever driven back to its
infancy, for, long ere it is permitted to attain per¬
fection, it droops and dies ; like roses, which no
sooner burst out into full bloom, than they wither;
that there is no beyond, no choice but to die, or
look back and sigh to “ become a bird again,” and
live over the same brief life : and such is the doom
of all earthly love.

It was a clear, bright morning in spring, one of
those mornings in which Summer seems to have
stepped forth from her golden chamber before her
time, as if to look upon her great garden the earth,
to see how her buds and blossoms are progressing ;
when high in the centre of the open village-green,
towering above the aged elm, whose weather-beaten
stem was surrounded by rustic seats, rose, the tall
Maypole, hung with gaudy garlands, in which flut¬
tered ribands of as many dyes as there were varied
hues in the flowers, amid which they were twined.
At the foot of the Maypole stood a rustic throne of
trellis-work, covered with flowers and branches of
Hawthorn blossoms, drooping in many a graceful

THE QUEEN OF MAY.

121

form, and on it was seated the Queen of May, her
beautiful brow crowned with a simple wreath of
wild roses ; while, hand in hand, young men and
village maidens formed a circle around her, and,
with smiling faces, timed their feet to the music of
an old-fashioned country dance. At a distance stood
the wealthy squire, surrounded by his family, his face
beaming with smiles, as he gazed upon the merry
group before him, and pointed proudly to his
youngest daughter, who sat crowned the Queen of
May. For ages past had some high-born daughter
of the hall laid aside her dignity for the day, and con¬
descended to preside over their May games. Many
a proud beauty who now slept in the dark vault
beneath the chancel pavement, on which shone the
morning sun, had, in the rose-bloom of youth and
loveliness, left her old ancestral hearth and mounted
the flowery throne on the village green, to do
reverence to May ; hut never before had there
stepped out, from that long gallery of departed
beauties, one lovelier than she who now sat the
crowned queen of the month of flowers. Her face
recalled the immortal sculpture of ancient Greece ;
and you might have fancied, but for the pearly flush
which softened into the peach-like velvetness of her
cheeks, and the smile which ever played about the
parted rosebuds of her lips, that her head and neck
had been chiselled from the whitest marble, with just

122

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

such a warmth thrown over it, as sometimes flushes
the pearl-white blossoms of the Hawthorn. The
silken flow of her nut-brown hair was parted
Madonna-wise in front, and beautifully broken by
the damask coronet of wild roses, which here and
there went rounding off, or was half buried in the
dark back-ground of her tresses, like a bird partly
hidden among the blossoms amid which it sings ; a
mild, tender light played about the softened sun¬
shine of her hazel eyes, throwing a brightness over
the heaven from which they beamed, and a happi¬
ness over every countenance, which reflected back
the smiling sweetness of their cheering lustre, like
the sunshine streaming upon a bed of open prim¬
roses, and causing the pale yellow of the modest
flowers to “ give back gold for gold.” Around the
ivory pillar of her neck hung a band of rosebuds,
beautifully twisted into a silken riband ; the warm
marble of her arms was ornamented with bracelets
of flowers, and the belt which encircled her slender
waist was covered with bunches of Hawthorn-
blossoms. She looked as if the Goddess of Flowers
had newly alighted upon the earth, and ascended
that throne to preside over her worshippers. In
her hand she held a sceptre, covered with the
choicest flowers of spring, and as she raised or
lowered it, so the dancers proceeded, or halted in
a moment, in the midst of their merry measure.

THE QUEEN OF MAY.

123

They also were ornamented with flowers, and had a
stranger suddenly come up, who had never before
witnessed these floral amusements, he would have
thought that the nymphs of Arcady had wandered
from their ancient and poetical vales, and come to
pay homage to the flowery pastures of England. A
handsome-looking young gentleman stood gazing
upon the scene, with his horse’s bridle thrown neg¬
ligently over his arm, while he timed the measure
of the dance with the butt-end of his riding-whip,
upon the ground. The Queen of May lowered her
flowery sceptre, and, stopping the dance, beckoned
one of the village maidens to approach, when,
whispering something in her ear, she took the band
of rosebuds from her neck and placed it in the
hands of the dancer, who exchanged a few words
with five of her fair companions, and they went
trippingly up to the young gentleman, and, throw¬
ing the wreath of roses around him, brought him
prisoner before the Queen of May. Laughing, he
knelt down and kissed the white hand which was
extended towards him, then took his seat beside
her on the throne of flowers. Then again the music
sounded, and the light-footed dancers whirled round
the dizzy maze, now joined by the jolly old English
squire, who made the earth shake again beneath
the tread of his heavy top-boots. A few bottles of
the choicest wine had been brought from the

124

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

cellars of the hall, and the corks were drawn by
a servant in old-fashioned livery, and, amid loud
huzzas, the healths of the King and Queen of May
were drunk by the happy villagers. Another dance,
in which the queen and her lover joined, being
over, the squire and his family retired through the
ancient iron gates of the lodge, and were soon lost
in the long avenue which led to the hall, leaving
the merry villagers to end their May-day game
amongst themselves. They elected a new May
queen, by cutting a quantity of sprigs from a rose¬
bush, amid which only one bud was placed ; this,
together with the sprays which contained only
leaves, was concealed in the palm of the hand,
while the stalks or stems only were left visible, and
she who was fortunate enough to draw out the rose¬
bud, was proclaimed Queen of the May, and placed
upon the flowery throne, which her sovereign sister
had just abdicated.

Alas ! this innocent old English holiday has now
all but passed away ; no one now serenades the
“ sweet slug-a-beds” in the early morning, as they
did in the days of Herrick, bidding them rise up
and put “ on their foliage, and come forth like the
spring time, fresh, and green, and sweet as Flora,”
and not stop to adorn themselves with jewels, for
the dews of morning were waiting to cover them
all over with pearls. There is no longer that

THE QUEEN OF MAT.

125

devotion which gave to each house a hough; May-
day and May-games are but like flowers thrown
into the sea of Time, and cast by the waves upon
the long straggling shores, below the dim cliffs,
whose heights are only overlooked by Memory. The
“Contented Shepherd” lives but in such beautiful
lines as we here quote, and which were written by a
lady named Mary Robertson, of whom we know
nothing, about half a century ago. We place the
verses amongst our flowers, that they may not be
forgotten : —

“ By the side of a mountain o’ershadowed with trees,

With thick clusters of vine intermingled and wove,

1 behold my thatched cottage, dear mansion of ease,

The seat of Contentment, of Friendship, and Love.

Each morn when I open the latch of my door,

My heart throbs with rapture to hear the birds sing;

And at night, when the dance in the village is o’er,

On my pillow I strew the sweet roses of Spring.

When I hide in the forest from noon’s scorching beam,

While tho torrents’ deep murmurs re-echoing found.

When the herds quit their pasture to quaff the clear stream.
And the flocks in the vale lie extended around,

I muse—but my thoughts are contented aud free,

I regret not the splendour of riches and pride;

The delights of retirement are dearer to me
Than the proudest appendage to greatness allied.

I sing, and my song is the carol of day.

My cheek glows with health like the wild rose in bloom:

I dance, yet forget not, though blithesome and gay,

That I measure the footsteps that lead to the tomb.

126

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

Contented to live, yet not fearful to die,

With a conscience unspotted, I pass through life’s scene;
On the wings of delight every moment shall fly,

And the end of my days be resigned and serene.”

The White Jonquil, or Poet’s Narcissus, is found
in most gardens, and is well known by the rich
crimson rim which marks the golden cup in its
centre. Although linked with the old heathen
mythology, and the name of the foolish youth who
became enamoured of his own shadow, as he saw
it leflected in the waters, still this poetical flower is
allied to our true English family of Daffodils, and
is often mentioned by our early dramatists. It
might have been turned to better use, in floral
language, than it is; but being just admissible,
and not requiring any over-exertion of fancy to see
that Narcissus had a Desire to love some one who
resembled himself, we must allow it to pass. The
White Jonquil possesses the sweetest fragrance of
all this class of flowers, and one which ought to
be numbered amongst the sweetest perfumes which
breathe from the sweet and parted lips of May.

The Convolvulus, or Bindweed, is known to every
one ; from the pale pink flower that clings to the
reeds of corn, to the long festoons which throw
their large, white, hollow cups ever every hedgerow.
The Blue Convolvulus, which we see so commonly
twined around door-porches, and beneath window-

THE QUEEN OF MAY.

127

sills, constantly closes its flowers about four o’clock,
and such a regular “ go-to-bed,” as it is called in
the country, is no bad emblem of Repose. The
Convolvulus and the Briony both twine contrary
ways, one to the sun and the other from it; nor
can these positions be changed; attempt to alter
them, and in a few hours they will either resume
their former spiral course, or begin to wither, and
soon die. Something very beautiful might be
woven out of this fact, and a new legend added
to our wildflowers; and had I not given the pre¬
ference in this group to the May, and occupied
my space with a description of its sweetness and
beauty, I should have wandered wherever fancy had
led me, in pursuit of some old-world love-story con¬
nected with the Convolvulus.

Few know that there is a beautiful fragrant
Yellow Tulip, which grows wild in our own pastoral
England, and which may often be found in full
flower, in the warm beds of chalk-pits, about the
end of April, or early in May. It gives pleasure
to me, a true lover as I am of my own country,
to know, that we are neither indebted to Turks
nor turbans for the origin of this splendid wild-
flower, which was, no doubt, more plentiful in the
days of our old Elizabethan poets, and which is
mentioned in Ben Jonson’s “Pan’s Anniversary”
by the very name it still bears. The gaudy Tulip

128

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

of our gardens is ill chosen as the emblem of a
Declaration of Love; nor is it at all necessary in
the floral alphabet, when the Rosebud (a thousand
times a more fitting representative) denotes a Con¬
fession of Love, and in both cases the sense and
meaning are the same. Some have selected the
Rosebud as the emblem of a girl,— the language of
flowers needs neither girl, boy, nor infant; Love
is ever young, and the flowers that denote age
grow not in his garden. In our catalogue of the
flowers of affection at the end of this volume, we
have thrown out numberless weeds which have too
long encumbered the flowers in the garden of Love.
The Tulip, however, is just admissible, and, like
many an indifferent word which has crept into our
English dictionaries, must, like the fly in amber,
retain its place, because we find it there. Scores
of others, which have really no meaning in them,
nor hear any resemblance to the qualities they
have been chosen to represent, I have rejected with
an unmerciful hand, and allowed them no place in
my “ Poetical Language of Flowers.”

HCW MAY WAS FIEST MADE.

129

HOW MAY WAS FIRST MADE.

As Spring upon a silver cloud
^jay looking on the world below,

Watching the breezes as they bowed
The buds and blossoms to and fro,

She saw the fields with Hawthorns walled :

Said Spring, “ New buds I will create.”

She to a Flower-Spirit called,

Who on the month of May did wait,

And bade her fetch a Hawthorn-spray,

That she might make the buds of May.

Said Spring, The grass looks green and bright,
The Hawthorn-hedges too are green,

I’ll sprinkle them with flowers of light,

Such stars as earth hath never seen ;

And all through England’s girded vales,

Her steep hill-sides and haunted streams,
Where woodlands dip into the dales,

Where’er the Hawthorn stands and dreams,
Where thick-leaved trees make dark the day,
I’ll light the land with flowers of May.

K

130

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

Like pearly dew-drops, white and round,

The sliut-up huds shall first appear,

And in them bo such fragrance found,

As breeze before did never hear;

Such as in Eden only dwelt,

When angels hover’d round its bowers,

And long-hair’d Eve at morning knelt
In innocence amid the flowers :

While the whole air was, every way,

Fill’d with a perfume sweet as May.

And oft shall groups of children come,

Threading their way through shady places,
From many a peaceful English home,

The sunshine falling on their faces ;
Starting with merry voice the thrush,

As through green lanes they wander singin
To gather the sweet Hawthorn-bush ;

Which homeward in the evening bringing
With smiling faces, they shall say,

“ There’s nothing half so sweet as May.”

And many a poet yet unborn

Shall link its name with some sweet lay,
And lovers oft at early morn

Shall gather blossoms of the May ;

With eyes bright as the silver dews
Which on the rounded May-bud sleep,

HOW MAY WAS FIRST MADE.

And lips, whose parted smiles diffuse
A sunshine o’er the watch they keep,
Shall open all their white array
Of pearls, ranged like the buds of May.

Spring shook the cloud on which she lay,
And silver’d o’er the Hawthorn spray,
Then shower’d down the buds of May.

131

132

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

CUPID AND PSYCHE.

YOUR ANGER CAUSES ME PAIN, YOUR FRIENDSHIP
AND LOVE ARE AN EVERLASTING PLEASURE.

Emblems.

ANGER —GORSE: PAIN OR GRIEF— MARIGOLD: FRIEND¬
SHIP— ACACIA: EVERLASTING PLEASURE—5 WEET PEA.

“ Fly, Zephyrus ! on top of yonder mount
My fair love sits; on thy soft swelling wings
Let Psyche ride: you, Voices, that attend me.

Dance in the air, like wantons, to entice
My love to dwell in Cupid’s paradise;

Music, with ravishing tones enchant her ears:

She that doth Cupid wed, thus shall she live.”

The Queen’s Mask, 1615.

In that primitive and patriarchal age, when wealth
consisted in the possession of flocks and herds, and
the early fathers pitched their tents and made their
homes wherever the sweetest pasturage could be
found for their cattle, or the clearest streams went

\

CUPID AND PSYCHE.

133

murmuring along through the breadth and length of
the sweetest pastoral scenery,— it was then that
Love, during his pilgrimage to the shrines of the
flowers, chanced to alight in one of those green
valleys, which opened out every way beyond the
long avenues of venerable oaks, that threw their
shady arms over the smooth and flowery plains of
Arcadia. Below the oaks spread many a long under¬
wood of fragrant Acacias, of every hue which the
queenly Rose wears through the endless changes of
her diversified attire,—from the deep crimson to the
warm white, as it deepens upward, tint into tint, till
you cannot tell where the first faint blush com¬
mences, nor trace the almost imperceptible shades
it passes through, until it settles down into a deeper
crimson than was ever woven into those richly-dyed
curtains, which the hand of Evening draws across
the sky, when the sun has descended into his golden
chamber beneath the ocean. Around the stems of
the Acacias gracefully twined every variety of the
Sweet, and Everlasting Pea, while their fragrant
flowers of white, and red, and purple, showed like
thousands of winged butterflies, which had alighted
amidst those emerald leaves and curled tendrils, as
if to rest awhile, before they sallied forth to visit the
green and flowery valleys, which slept in the sun¬
shine on every hand. Whichever way Love turned
his eye, to where the greensward spread, or the up-

134

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

land sloped downward to the edge of the stream, he
beheld cattle browsing, and saw nymphs and swains
attending their flocks, while their low, sweet pipings
filled all the valley with music. Here a beautiful
bevy of white-footed maidens tripped lightly to the
oaten reed of the shepherd, as he sat upon the
twisted root of some antique oak, while his flock
grazed in the distance, seeming to take no note
of the dancers. There, half concealed beneath the
embowering Acacias, sat two fond lovers, toying with
each other; she timing the distant music with her
crook idly upon the ground, whilst he was twisting
the Sweet Pea in the clusters of her hair, or hang¬
ing its green tendrils here and there amongst the
rolling folds of her down-dropping ringlets. Further
on a group was gathered around two shepherds, who
were contending for a milk-white lamb: the prize
stood bleating before them, garlanded with flowers,
and they strove, like rival nightingales, each trying
to overwhelm the other by the power by its song,
as they chanted aloud the happiness which abounds
in pastoral life, and sung the praises of the beautiful
nymph which each secretly adored. Love stood by
unperceived, and listened; and his immortal heart
glowed within him while he heard one of them sing
the praises of Psyche — the bashful, the beautiful;
Psyche, the milk-handed—the star-eyed—the shy
fawn ; which but the sound of a footstep frightened

CUPID AND PSYCHE.

135

away. They called her the nymph whose motions
were more graceful than the flowers of the Acacia,
that drooped and swung in the breeze,—who never
spoke hut what the very air seemed to hold in its
breath, as if to listen to the music of her sweet voice,
—who never appeared but the flocks left off grazing
to look upon her,— nor ever moved without the
flowers bending their heads as if to follow her.
Psyche, on whose head the timid butterflies alighted,
around whose parted lips the bees flew murmuring,
as if they wanted to deposit the honey which they
bore to the rich stores that were hidden within them ;
Psyche, who garlanded the ivory of her neck with
the trailing flowers of the Pea-blossom, until the
parted buds flew back from her shoulders like wings,
as she ran along, followed by the butterflies, when
they went out to play together. Love leant upon
his bow enraptured, and resolved within himself
that he would find out where this beautiful flower
of Arcadia concealed herself, for he soon learnt
that her abode was unknown to the shepherds,
who but occasionally caught a passing glimpse of
her beauty.

Over many a pasture and many a plain did Love
wander in search ofPsyche ; through long avenues of
mighty oaks, and fragrant arbours of Acacia, parting
the trailing tendrils of the vetches with his pointed
arrow as he forced his way between them, until at

136

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

length he came to where a wide field of Marigolds
stood, with their heads all turned towards a green
bower, formed by the Acacias, and mantled over
with the flowers of the Everlasting Pea. Noiseless
as a blossom which just moves before the gentle
breath of a bird, did Love approach that flowery
arbour ; and he dropped his bow and arrows in
mute amazement, as he gazed breathless upon the
vision of beauty which slept in the green shadow
of the embowering leaves. Neither the Graces, nor
the Hours, who withdraw the golden curtains of the
dawn when Aurora rises from her slumber, nor the
loveliest forms which hover around the summit of
Olympus and wait upon the dreaded divinities,—•
not Hebe, in whose countenance all the beauty of
youth was centered, came near to the indescribable
loveliness of that sleeping nymph of Arcadia. And
as Love gazed upon her, he knew that he had
discovered a form more beautiful than any of the
flowers he had hitherto knelt beside.

He listened to the low murmurs which escaped
from the opening rosebuds of her lips, and he
heard her pray to be wedded to a love that might
never perish, to an essence that could never know
decay ; were it but a moving shadow of immortality
she cared not, if even she never beheld the sub¬
stance of the divinity she loved. “ Make me but
the remotest point,” sighed Psyche, in her sleep,

CUPID AND PSYCHE.

137

“ that forms a portion of the starry circle which the
star eternally shines upon, the furthest that is
lighted by the radiance on which it waits, feeling
itself, nevertheless, as if a portion of that star,
although only admitted there like a worshipper on
whom the bright effulgence falls. Let me become a
part of the lightest down that feathers the edge of
an immortal wing, so that I may but feel that I am
a part of that immortality ; or, if I must perish, give
me a brief career of beauty, crowd the space of a
year into a single day, and, like the butterfly, send
me forth winged,— a divinity floating above the
flowers,— that I may before I die taste of the
existence of the gods, and catch, like them, the
ethereal air, which hath never beaten upon the
bosom of the earth.”

Love knelt down beside her, and breathing be¬
tween the parted honey of her lips, in kisses whis¬
pered that her prayer was answered ; and from that
hour she was a partaker of the divinity of LoVe.
“ And this power shalt thou possess,” continued
Love, “ so long as thou canst withhold thine eyes
from mine; for if once my image is mirrored in
the floating orbs of thy beauty, from that moment
shalt thou again become mortal, and subject to that
death which overtakes the daughters of the earth:
for such was the doom uttered by the Thunderer on
Olympus, on all who should covet an immortal love.

138

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

So fondly do I adore thee,” continued Love, “ that
I will bear thee away to a cave, where Jupiter once
sheltered a fair mortal like thyself from the jealous
eyes of Juno ; where it shall ever be light as noon¬
day when I am absent, but dark as the hollow of
a mountain, into which the air of heaven never
breathed, when I visit thee, in all the immortality
of my love.” Love bore her away to the beautiful
cavern which had opened at the bidding of Jupiter,
under one of the mountains of Arcadia; and went
arching far beneath it: the entrance was concealed
under masses of rugged underwood, while all around
stretched an impenetrable barrier of gorse bushes,
their sharp-pointed spears half hidden by the deep
gold of the blossoms with which they were overhung.
As a bird bears the feathered seed in its beak, even
so lightly did Love fly along, enclosing the beautiful
Psyche in his embrace, while her white arm was
twined, as if for security, around his neck. A score
of times was she about to raise her eyes and look
into his face, when she recalled the doom of death
which she knew she must endure ; and as she re¬
membered the fiat of the Thunderer, she clung more
closely to Love, and embraced more firmly the
divinity that clasped her in his arms. Once only
did she catch a glimpse of his countenance as they
passed over a clear stream, and although it was but
a momentary glance, she saw in it a beauty which

CUPID AND PSYCHE.

139

belonged not to earth, and she knew that it was an
immortal who loved her.

For many a day did Love and Psyche dwell
together in that beautiful cavern, which was roofed
with silver spars, and paved with the choicest
flowers ; while all around were piled twisted and
crimson shells, and huge pearls, just as they had
grown ; and diamonds that, in Love’s absence, threw
around a light brighter than day. Still Psyche
was unhappy, for she had not yet looked into her
lover’s face. Clear-mirrored, at the end of the
grotto stood a fountain, smooth and bright as glass ;
if she held but one of her silken hairs in her
fingers it was reflected back, and in it she could
see her own face in the beaded pupils of her match¬
less eyes. Beside the fountain stretched a bed of
golden-coloured moss, and as she had long before
persuaded Love not to withdraw the light when he
was present, so did she now entice him to repose
upon the golden moss, where she could see his
image reflected in the basin of the fountain, with¬
out drawing upon herself the doom of death. And
now she could gaze upon him for hours, with her
eyes bent downwards in that clear mirror, while he
was so enraptured with her matchless beauty, that
his glance but seldom wandered from her sweet
countenance; and so imprinted were his features
upon her memory, that on every yielding substance

140

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

she had drawn out the faithful features of Love.
He who had eyes for her alone was a long time
before he discovered these accurate images of him¬
self, and when he did, his first exclamation was,
“What hand hath done this?” Forgetting Love’s
warning for the moment, she looked up into his
face and answered, “Mine, sweet Love! I but
copied the image from my heart, where it had
been so long engraven, and transferred it there.”
Love gazed upon her in mute amazement, and
whilst he looked, her face beamed with a brightness
which belonged to heaven—not a shadow of death
passed over it; for she had gazed into a fountain
in which the face of Jove had many a time been
mirrored, and after the death of Leda, whom he had
long secreted in that hidden grotto, he vowed by
his divinity, that whatever countenance was next
reflected in that fountain should become immortal,
nor ever know death. Nor was it until an after-day
that Venus discovered this secret, when she found
that Psyche overcame every difficulty, and lived on
in spite of all she suffered: for never had the
Goddess of Beauty dreaded a rival amongst the
Immortals until she beheld the lovely countenance
of Psyche. Her labours and her sufferings are
found in many an old legend ; her patience and her
tears were known only to Love ; and it was during
her rambles through the world, while she was

CUPID AND PSYCHE.

141

driven from the assembly of the gods, that she
wandered many a weary mile hand-in-hand with
Love, when he set out to learn the long-lost Lan¬
guage of the Flowers.

And ever after, in commemoration of their love,
the Acacia was transplanted to the garden of the
gods, and the Everlasting Pea trailed about the
bowers of Olympus ; while the Marigold was changed
to a worshipper of the sun, hung with grief, and
pain, and sorrow, in his absence, but when present,
turning to the God of Day with its golden smile
of love. Ages have passed away since the mouth of
that cool cavern was closed for ever: for number¬
less years was it guarded by the angry Gorse, and
never durst either nymph or swain venture within
sight of those golden-headed spears, after that
cavern had been hallowed by the presence of Love.
Altars were erected in those valleys, and yeaned
lambs offered up to the immortal nymph, whom
they believed often came back in the form of a
butterfly, to visit the green glades of Arcadia; and
many a piece of ancient sculpture, half buried with
flowers, has been found in the vale of Arcadia, repre¬
senting Cupid and Psyche enfolded in each other’s
arms.

But few of our wild plants are better known than
the Gorse, furze or whin: it is a native of almost
every common and heath, and there are but few

142

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

roadside wastes, excepting in low, marshy lands,
where it does not grow. We see its bright yellow
blossoms blooming amid the dark green of the
underwood, and looking in the glare of the sunlight
like a bush in flames. Hurdis, in a beautiful poem,
entitled “ The Village Curate,” says : —

“ What’s more noble than the vernal Furze,

With golden baskets hung? Approach it not,

For every blossom has a troop of swords
Drawn to defend it.”

The Marigold is well known, and there are but
few country gardens without it; it is still commonly
used as a pot-herb by the village dames. Shakspeare
makes it an emblem of grief in the following lines,—

“ The Marigold that goes to bed with the sun.

And with him rises weeping.”

William Browne, in his “Britannia’s Pastorals,” to
which I have dedicated a whole chapter in my work
entitled “ Rural Sketches,” thus marks the close of
day:—

“ But, maiden, see the day is waxen old,

And goes to shut in with the Marygold.”

And Chatterton, “ the marvellous boy,” calls it

“The Marybudde that shutteth with the light.”

There is something very beautiful in the mingled
colours of the Sweet-pea, looking as if two or three
different flowers shot out of the same calyx. It is
like a little ship, with its rounded prow and arching

THE VALE OF ARCADIA.

143

keel, the hull of which is blue, overshadowed with
sails of blended crimson and purple dyes. It
resembles the nautilus, or looks like a butterfly
that has alighted for a moment upon the slender
stem, and

“ On the flower a folded pea-bloom swings.*’

THE YALE OE ARCADIA.

It was a pleasant vale in the olden time,

When peaceful shepherds piped along the plains,
And the young world was in its golden prime,
When the green groves rung back their rustic
strains,

When the old forest was their only town,

Their streets the flowery glades, their temples
mountains brown.

A winding stream flowed through that verdant valley,
And pleasant music its sweet waters made,

As with the drooping flowers it there did dally,

Or, lower down, amid the pebbles played,

Then brawled along through many a mossy maze,
Here lit with struggling beams, there dark with
drooping sprays.

144

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

And sunny slopes, of green and flowery ground,
Went stretching far along the water’s edge,
Seeming to listen to that slumberous sound ;

For nought there moved save when the reedy
sedge

Bowed to its shadow in the stream beneath,

Or some light ripple stirred the lily’s pearly wreath.

A velvet sward, its length deep-rimmed with flowers,
Wound by the stream, and formed a pleasant walk,
Shaded by boughs ; sweet summer-woven bowers,
In which the leaves did oft together talk,

Now to themselves, then to the brook below,

Just as the fitful winds in fancy seemed to blow.

Sometimes a cloud, that seemed to have lost its way,
Went sailing o’er the ridge of sable pines,
Steeping their topmost boughs in silvery grey,

Or “glinting” downward on the purple vines,

Till their broad leaves threw back a moon-like
gleam,

And then a shadow swept o’er valley, tree, and stream.

Sweet were the sounds that through Arcadia flowed :

The gentle lambs bleated all summer long,

The spotted heifer from the thicket lowed,

The nightingale struck up her starlight song,

THE VALE OF ARCADIA.

345

A mournful coo the hidden ringdove made,

Now high, now low, now list, just as the branches
swayed.

And Love and Psyche dwelt amid those bowers,
And there he first found how her gentle heart
Drew sweet emotions from the perfumed flowers,
Till of her soul they had become a part;

And how when summer’s buds had passed away,
Their fragrance still within her parted lips did lay.

L

146

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

ELLEN NEVILLE.

I AAl your captive, and hope to possess such

LASTING BEAUTY.

Emblems.

LOVE’S CAPTIVE — PEACH-BLOSSOM: IIOPE — SNO WDHOP:
LASTING BEAUTY — STOCK.

« Why did she love him ? she would answer still,

‘ Is human love the growth of human will
To her he might be gentleness; the stern
Have deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern;

And when they love, your smilers guess not how
Beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow.”

Byron’s Lara.

It was towards the close of the civil wars, when
the storm which had long shaken England was
somewhat assuaged, and the cavalry of Cromwell
had all but trampled under foot the last remains of
the royal army, — when wealthy estates were daily

ELLEN NEVILLE.

147

confiscated, and the heir of many a noble race
slept his long sleep upon the battle-field,—that
young Marchmont, who had risen to the rank of
general in the army of the Commonwealth, came
to take possession of the ancient manor-house of the
Nevilles, armed with the broad seal of Cromwell
and his Parliament: for the last of the Nevilles had
died a warrior’s death, and fallen, fighting nobly, at
the battle of Marston Moor.

While yet clothed in deep mourning for the death
of her brother, Ellen Neville received the com¬
mands of the stern Protector to resign for ever
the home of her forefathers into the hands of a
stranger. A strict inventory had been taken of
every article which the house contained, and saving
her own wardrobe and a miniature of her mother,
she left the hearth of her ancestors a homeless
and penniless orphan. The shadows of evening
were settling down upon the old park, when, fol¬
lowed by her attendant, Phoebe, she walked with
sad heart down the long avenue of ancient elms, in
the direction of the lodge. It was still very early
in the spiing, and, before quitting the park-gates,
she stooped down and gathered two or three pale
Snowdrops, and then, with a heavy sigh, left
the park, while the massy iron gates swung behind
her as if with a heavy and complaining sound.
She turned round to take a farewell look, just as

148

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

the sinking sun flashed redly upon the carved
escutcheon of her ancestors which surmounted the
gates. Phoebe stooped down to pick up one of the
Snowdrops which her beautiful mistress had un¬
consciously dropped, and, presenting her with it,
said, “ Take heart, my dear lady; this flower is the
emblem of Hope, and something tells me that you
will yet live to see happier days.” The Lady Ellen
took the proffered flower, smiling faintly through
her tears as she thanked her attendant, then
threaded her way in the direction of the thatched
grange, in which the honest farmer’s wife lived, who
had nursed her in her infancy.

Although General Marchmont had risen to such
eminence in the Parliamentary army, it was neither
by adhering to the strict Puritanic habits of the
Roundheads, rendering himself a tool in the hands
of Cromwell, nor a time-server to any of his emis¬
saries ; for he was one of those who drew the sword
through conscientious motives against King Charles,
and his own bravery had called forth the thanks of
Parliament while his praises had been recorded
before the face of the whole army. The mansion
which he inherited through a long line of ancestors
had, with all it contained, been burnt to the ground
by the Royalists, during the commencement of the
wars which so long desolated England. Even the
very woods which before sheltered it had been cut

ELLEN NEVILLE.

149

down for fuel by the Cavaliers when they encamped
in the neighbourhood : — all that remained of his
ancient estate was the broad lands, blackened over
by the traces of the consuming fire. He was one
of those who wished to overturn the old monarchy
through the purest of motives ; who from his soul
believed King Charles to be a tyrant, an oppressor,
and an enemy of his people ; and who, like the
noble-hearted patriot Hampden, made up his mind
to sacrifice both estate and life, when he rushed
into the struggle, to do battle for the good of his
fellow-men.

More than one of the confiscated estates which
belonged to the Royalists had before been offered to
him, as a compensation for the losses he had sus¬
tained through the wars, but these he had steadily
refused, from honourable motives, when he ascer¬
tained that the heirs were still alive, although in
exile ; nor could he be induced to take possession
of the ancient manor-house of the Nevilles, until the
most solemn assurance was given him, that not one
of the family was then left alive upon the face of
the earth ; nor did he know that such a person
as Ellen Neville ever existed in the world, for she
had been educated in a remote part of the country;
neither was it long before the eve of her brother’s
death that she had, since her youthful days, dwelt
under the ancient roof of her forefathers. Thus

150

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

when General Marchmont took possession of the
splendid old mansion, as a gift from those who then
ruled the nation, and a reward for his unimpeached
valour, he was led to believe that he had only
accepted what would have fallen to the nation, or,
at best, slumbered for long years in the Court of
Chancery, until some unknown and undreamed-of
claimant had risen up, and groped his way towards
it, through the dark and uncertain avenues of the
law. So he entered those walls with no other
feeling than that of sorrow for the ancient pos¬
sessors who were dead. Care had been taken
to remove all the old domestics, and, with the
exception of a parliamentary agent, who had been
sent down to take an inventory of the property,
no one besides knew that the young lady in deep
mourning was the Lady Neville, for she had never
accosted one of them before her departure, nor
quitted the apartments which had been allotted to
her during the confiscation, saving to ramble in the
ancient garden.

Ellen Neville was too well versed in the changes
which those stormy times produced, to be at all
astonished at what had happened, for she knew
that she had suffered as others had done who had
fallen from their high estate ; and although in heart
a stanch Royalist, she had heard so much said in
praise of the young general,— of his valour, his losses,

ELLEN NEVILLE.

151

the sacrifices he had several times made when he
thought another would be injured by the offers
made to him by Parliament,— that such rumours
at last almost seemed to reconcile her to her lot.
Two or three ancient footpaths crossed the park,
and led to distant villages in various directions;
and by the time that another spring had deepened
into summer, she had so far overcome her old
scruples that, through the entreaties of Phoebe
and the persuasions of her old nurse, she now
and then ventured out to walk forth into the
park; and on one or two occasions had entered
the spacious garden, which was endeared to her
by a thousand memories, that recalled the happy
days of her childhood.

The gardener was a young man, who, during the
civil wars, had belonged to the regiment which the
General commanded, but had now laid aside his
sword and helmet, to tend the flowers, and overlook
the spacious gardens. And never would he allow
Phoebe to depart, when in attendance on her beau¬
tiful young mistress they traversed together the
ancient pleasance, without persuading her to accept
a splendid bouquet, in the formation of which he
displayed considerable taste. Phoebe gladly received
the gift, for she soon perceived that the flowers
were treasured all the more by the Lady Ellen,
through having grown in the garden which from

152

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

childhood she had ever considered as her own; and
thus, while the flowers lasted, they frequently visited
the grounds of the old manor-house.

The garden of itself was a picture, too beautiful
to be described in plain prose, for near it stood the
ruins of an old castle, built by one of the Nevilles
who came over with William the Norman. Some¬
thing like the following, for want of a better, must
pass for our description of

THE OLD CASTLE GARDEN.

Hard by the crumbling castle wall,

That old and gloomy garden spread,
With many a quaintly-shapen bed,
And many a mazy path that led
To postern, drawbridge, bower, and hall,
Through gloomy groves of evergreens,
Dark low-browed rocks, and shady scenes,
Hemmed in by fir-trees black and tall.
And all around
That dreary ground
Was heard the sound
Of many a mournful fountain falling,
And many an echo faintly calling
To waving trees and low-voiced streams,
Where Day but rarely spread his beams,—
It seemed a living land of dreams.

ELLEN NEVILLE.

153

There ruined summer-arbours stood,

Mantled with moss and untwined vine,

A wilderness of sweet woodbine,

Ivy and starry jessamine,

And mirrored in a murmuring flood
Were marble forms of many a god,

Some gazing on the daisied sod,

Or half-seen through the underwood;

And Venus fair,

With parted hair,

Was bending there.

She seemed to mock the Sculptor’s art,

And listening stood with lips apart.

Others were buried ’mid the flowers,—

Dryads, and Fauns, and Nymphs, and Hours,
Stood peeping through the leafy bowers.

It was one day, while Phoebe was gossiping as
usual with the young gardener, that the Lady
Ellen had wandered alone down one of the long,
pleached avenues, at the end of which stood the old
familiar summer-house, where she had passed many
a happy hour, when a girl, in the society of her
mother : and that, while she sat there musing on
old times, and old bygone scenes, all teeming with
sweet and sorrowful recollections, she was startled
by the appearance of a tall, handsoine-looking gen-
man, who approached without observing her, so

154

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

deeply was he absorbed in the contents of the open
book, which he held in his hand. Nor was it until
the slight rustling made by her heavy silk dress
arrested his attention, as she arose from her seat,
that he seemed aware of the beautiful vision which
thus burst so suddenly upon him. He became mute
and motionless in a moment, as the lady in the
enchanted chair he was then reading about in the
“ Mask of Comus,” which he had only that very
day received, by a special messenger, from the
hand of Milton himself; nor was his embarrass¬
ment a jot removed when she apologised, in tones
sweet as those of an angel, for having thus un¬
consciously intruded upon his retirement. In the
very pains he took to assure her that her presence
was a pleasure, and would be so at all times and
all seasons, whenever she chose to wander over the
ancient plantations, the beauty of which he only
regretted were so seldom visited by any saving him¬
self; there was such a tone of sweet persuasion
about his voice, such a kindness in the manner in
which he invited her to consider the garden as her
own, while ever she was in it, and, above all, such
an admiration of herself lighted up his looks as he
spoke, that no marvel a young lady like herself,
who for more than twelve months had scarcely seen
any one, saving the rustic inhabitants of the farm¬
house, should listen with pleasure to the conver-

ELLEN NEVILLE.

155

sation of one who was every way her equal, and
whose name had never been mentioned but with
respect, even by the Royalists, against whom he
had drawn his sword. With such ease did he
glide from one subject to another, that, to the great
astonishment of Phoebe when she came up, she
found them seated side by side in the old summer¬
house, he reading, and the Lady Ellen listening
with delight to the beautiful passages which he
kept quoting from the “ Mask of Cornus.” Many a
happy hour did the General and the Lady Ellen
afterwards spend together ; he remaining in entire
ignorance respecting her rank and station, saving
that her whole family, with the exception of her¬
self, had perished during the wars ; but as any
further allusion to the subject seemed to cause the
lady pain, the young General kindly forbore to
question her.

As the winter approached the affairs of the
nation called General Marchmont up to London, to
meet the assembled parliament, and during that
period he frequently corresponded with the Lady
Ellen, for her image was ever uppermost in his
thoughts ; and no sooner did the early spring come,
and he was released from his duties, than he
hastened back on the wings of love to the ancient
manor-house. The Lady Ellen was walking in the
pleached alleys of the garden when he alighted

155

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

from his steed, and bearing, as he did, about him
the marks of haste and travel, he hurried to pay
his respects to her before he entered the hall. As
he took her hand, he thought that she had never
before appeared so beautiful. After a long con¬
versation, during which time flew by unheeded, he
looked at the few pale Snowdrops which she held
between the whiteness of her fingers, and the small
sprig of a hardy biennial Stock, which had flowered
before its time, and said, with a smile, while his
voice was tremulous with the earnestness of his
emotion, “ Sweet lady, you now hold the emblems
of Hope and Beauty in your hand ; ” and, gathering
a bunch of blossoms from the Peach, which already
bloomed upon the old garden-wall, he added, “ You
are, like myself, well versed in the meanings which
the old poets have attributed to the flowers. Sweet
lady mine, place this before the Snowdrop, then
read me the sentence, that I may know whether or
not you have forgotten the Language of Flowers
which we studied together last summer.” She
paused a moment, smiled, looked down, and said,
“ They mean, I am your Captive, and Hope to

possess such-” then sne blushed, and remained

silent. He confessed his love, and was accepted.

When the General discovered the young lady’s
rank, he shrank back from his engagement; and
dearly as he loved her, from motives of honour

ELLEN NEVILLE.

157

refused her proffered hand: nor was it until he
clearly saw that their union alone would again
establish her securely in her property, and prevent
it from falling into the hands of one of Cromwell’s
favourites, that he could be persuaded to become
her husband. “ If you love her,” said General Ire-
ton, “ you will best prove it by making her your
wife; for there are already half-a-dozen hungry
cormorants ever besieging his highness, and, much
as he admires you, if he once perceives your honour
leaning too much towards this fair Royalist, he will
take up his pen, and at one stroke sweep away
the old manor-house, and all its broad lands, from
both her and you for ever.” Ellen’s tears and Ire-
ton’s persuasions were too much for even General
Marchmont’s honest scruples, and the same sun that
shone upon the morning of his wedding-day, saw
the faithful Phoebe led to the altar by the honest
gardener.

158

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

THE SNOWDROP.

“Once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,

Like an unbidden guest.”—W okdswokth.

As Hope, with bowed head, silent stood,

And on her golden anchor leant,

Watching below the angry flood,

While Winter, ’mid the dreariment
Half-buried in the drifted snow,

Lay sleeping on the frozen ground,

Not heeding how the wind did blow,

Bitter and bleak on all around,

She gazed on Spring, who at her feet
Was looking on the snow and sleet.

Spring sighed, and through the driving gale
Her warm breath caught the falling snow,
And from the flakes a flower as pale
Did into spotless whiteness blow ;

Hope smiling saw the blossom fall,

And watched its root strike in the earth,—
“ I will that flower the Snowdrop call,”

Said Hope, “ in memory of its birth :

And through all ages it shall be
In reverence held, for love of me.”

THE SNOWDROP.

159

M And ever from my hidden bowers,”

Said Spring, “ it first of all shall go,

And be the herald of the flowers,

To warn away the sheeted snow:
lcs mission done, then by thy side
All summer long it shall remain.

While other flowers I scatter wide,

O’er every hill, and wood, and plain,

This shall return, and ever be
A sweet conrpanion, Hope, for thee.”

Hope stooped and kissed her sister Spring,

And said, “ For hours, when thou art gone,
I'm left alone without a thing
That I can fix my heart upon ;

’Twill cheer me many a lonely hour,

And in the future I shall see
Those who would sink raised by that flower,—
They’ll look on it, then think of thee:

And many a sadful heart shall sing,

The Snowdrop bringeth Hope and Spring.”

1G0

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

TIME AND THE FLOWERS.

YOUR YOUTHFULNESS CAUSES ME TO FEAR THAT YOU
MAY CHANGE: ONCE UNITED I SHALL BE NO
LONGER PENSIVE.

Emblems.

YOUTHFULNESS— CROCUS: CHANGE — PIMPERNEL:
UNITED —LANCASTER ROSE: PENSIVENESS —
COWSLIP.

“ ’Twas a liappy thought to mark the hours
By the opening and the folding flowers ;

Yet is not life in its real flight
Marked even thus on earth,

By the closing of one Hope’s delight.

Ere another Hope hath birth ?”

Mrs. Hemans.

Happy was that age, when Love and Beauty
kept no other record of time than what they found
in the opening and closing of the flowers,—when
the day was measured by the rising and setting
of the sun, and the hours marked in the unfolding

TIME AND THE FLOWEBS.

161

and shutting of the blossoms. Morning and even¬
ing the village maiden marked the hour of milking¬
time, by the waking and sleeping of the Daisy. The
mower, as he strode forth, with his scythe over his
shoulder, to cut down the summer flowers, hastened
his step if he saw that the cup of the Convolvulus
had expanded; and when his arm was weary,
turned to the hedge, over which it trailed in many
a fantastic line, for the close of his day’s lahoui
was announced by the shutting of the Bindweed.
The rustic beauty, before she went forth to Wake or
Feast, or donned her holiday attire, went out and
peeped at the scarlet Pimpernel; and if its starry
petals were closed, she knew that the showers
would soon descend, and, sighing, laid aside her
Sunday garments, until she could see the purple
spot at the bottom of the scarlet flower.

They knew that Winter was awakening from his
long sleep when the Snowdrop and the Crocus
appeared; they dated the coming of Spring from
the yellow dawning of Primroses upon the banks,
and the deep flush of Violets which lay like a
purple cloud upon the grass; and when the Poses
and Honeysuckles were in full bloom, they knew
that Summer had come in the beauty of her broad
bloom of flowers; but, when only a blossom was
seen here and there upon the Bramble, and the
blue of the nodding Harebell looked wan and pale,

162

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

and the crimson flush of the hardy Heath had faded
from its cheek, they whispered that the solemn
Autumn was at hand: for a thousand varied hues
proclaimed that the funeral pyre of Summer was
kindled, and all her flowers faded away to the ashy
grey, which only remains behind, when all her
beauty is extinguished.

Then Childhood sallied forth, with merry shout
and happy heart, and ran, until it was compelled to
stop through sheer weariness, to and fro among the
unnumbered flowers ; shaking off, in its eager flight,
the loosened silver from the Daisy, and the dusty
gold from the deep yellow of the Buttercup. Young
lovers only numbered the many happy meetings
they had had together by the days which the milk-
white Hawthorn remained in blossom, and the
many times they had heard the song of the cuckoo,
while seated beneath its fragrant shade. Old Age
dated the years it had lived by recalling how many
times it had seen the Wild Bose blow, and wandered
forth to gather the spotted blossoms of the golden
Cowslip. They kept their records of marriages by
the flowers which then bloomed, and the solemn
memory of the dead by the fragrant blossoms which
they showered upon their graves. They recalled
their joys and sorrows by the seasons, and dated
their success or adversity by the coming in or going
out of the flowers. Not that the flapping of Time’s

TIME AND THE FLOWERS.

163

grey wings sounded the less solemnly upon their
ears, or the waving of his hoary plumes passed
the less unnoticed, because they beat only upon a
race who recorded his flight by the sleeping and
awakening of the buds. No ! it prepared them for
the great change which they knew would some
day take place ; and they looked forward to their
journey to another world with a saddened pleasure,
deepened the more by the remembrance of the
beautiful flowers they were compelled to leave
behind, and half fearing that they might never
love those so well, which would bloom for ever,
in that land of eternal light beyond the grave.

They knew not the empty love, in which the

heart is no partaker,—the vows which they breathed

were intended to reach heaven, and to be registered

there amid all other holy things: for to them

the Accusing Spirit was not an empty name—they

believed that its All-seeing eye kept a severe watch

over the plighted troth of Love, and that the

Eecording Angel never blotted out a single letter

which stood beside his name who had broken the

heart of a fond and confiding woman. Wealth
•

had not then ploughed down and dug out that
deep abyss, every foot of which separates us further
from heaven: man wandered not in those days
in the dark, amid stumbling-blocks and wedges of
unfeeling gold ; he moved not in that cold, cheerless

1G4

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

atmosphere, where Love would never he able to
breathe, and Affection could never open the smallest
of its beautiful buds. For in that heart which pines
only for riches, Love can, at best, but find only
a brief dwelling-place—no blossom can ever come
into full bloom amid such darkness ! Mammon
alone dwells there: he is the sole god of those
cheerless dominions, and ever doth he sit alone
with his aching head pillowed upon a wedge of gold.
The cold, faint light of the unfeeling riches that
surround him makes him shiver—he can find no
warmth in his bright icy diamonds—he freezes in
his mail of silver—and when it is too late, learns
that the warm and beating heart of a loving woman
is the richest gem that the angels ever dropped
into the world ; that without her Happiness cannot
exist: that there is no true Love where she is not:
that real Friendship lives nowhere long, unless
nursed within her gentle breast: that when tender
Pity returned to heaven, she threw her mantle over
the white shoulders of woman, and bade her ever
wear it for her sakethat Sorrow and Sincerity
pressed her lips ere they soared away together, hand
in hand; they left her not hidden by a curtain
of gold, but kneeling with her long hair unbound,
and her white supplicating hands uplifted, praying
for some one to come and comfort her. That after
a time an angel, with averted head, led forth man,

TIME AND THE FLOWERS.

135

then turned away weeping and silent: and all night,
as he stood alone, sorrowing, beside the battlements
of heaven, his immortal heart smote him for what
he had done.

It was one day, as Time sat musing in the midst
of his ruins, while his scythe lay idly by his side,
and he took no notice of the glass, as through
it ebbed slowly the ever-moving sand, that his
thoughts turned to the cities he had laid low, and
the countries over which he had marched, through
many a bygone century. Much he marvelled within
himself that the scenes which he had ages ago made
desolate, should, in spite of his inroads, have again
recovered their beauty, and in place of the solitude
and dreariment which he had left behind, be fragrant
with the breath of thousands of flowers, and alive
with the hum and murmuring of bees. “ I will
destroy the flowers,” said Time ; “ they rob all
my ruins of their solemnity, and no one can
think of desolation wherever they are seen to
wave: before me they spring up, and behind me
they arise in the very footsteps where I have left
the marks of death, decay, and desolation : they
bloom in the silent aisles of the very abbeys which
I have unroofed; and where I have swept away
every trace of the massy and ornamented roofs of
the dead, there they come and wave.” And as he

1G6

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

sat upon the base of the ruined column, he began
to sharpen his scythe; but just as he was about
to commence the work of destruction, one of the
wandering Spirits of the Flowers rose up before
him, and placed her hand upon his arm. “ Wilt
thou spoil the beauty of thine own workmanship?”
said the fair Spirit of the Blossoms : “ what greater
victory wouldst thou wish to win over the power of
man, than that which thou hast already obtained?
Thou passest over his mighty works, and they
crumble at thy touch into the dust: thou hast but
to sit down and look upon the masses of masonry
which he has piled together, and, beneath thy silent
gaze, they moulder slowly away. It is over thy
workmanship that we scatter the flowers, to show
that thou hast ended what he but began; we but
pile up a monument on those silent shores, where
the pride of man is wrecked. Would thy work be less
complete if all was blank and desolate ? would weary
leagues of brown and barren land show the traces
of thy power? or would they not look like spots
over which thy wings had never waved ? It is the
peace and beauty which again reign over the places
thy hand hath made desolate, that hallow the soli¬
tude, and point out that, although Nature cannot
restore what thou hast overthrown, she can still
beautify what remains behind.”

TIME AND THE FLOWERS.

167

Time mused a moment, then took up his scythe
and hurried away, leaving the beautiful Spirit to do
as she willed with the flowers.

And ever since that period they have grown about
the grey ruins which Time hath left behind, and
waved upon the roofless walls which have decayed
beneath his mouldering touch, and would, long ago,
have crumbled into dust, but for the flowers, which
held the weather-beaten battlements together. Over
many a mound, beneath which the foundations of
forgotten abbeys lie buried, does the crimson-spotted
and pensive Cowslip still wave, and the early Crocus
unfold its golden sheath to catch the cheering
sunshine of Spring. To Time was given power
over the works of man, but over those of Nature he
holds no sway; from the very flowers that perish
others as beautiful spring up, and the oak sheds
the acorns from which arise other trees. Temples
and palaces he overturns, and they are no more;
nor can we ever know the forgotten graves which
he has obliterated, and trampled into the dust. In
the undated summers of the past, Youth and Beauty
wandered over the same flowery meadows which we
delight in rambling over now ; sunshine and shadow
swept above the long grass; and flowers, like those
we still look upon, bowed idly in the breeze before
their eyes, as they still do before our own. Could
they traverse the same spots again in the coming

168

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

summer, saving the altered hedgerow, and the rustic
stile, they would behold no change : the Crocus, and
the Cowslip, the Bluebell, Buttercup, and Daisy,
would stand dreaming among the green grass, as
they did a thousand years ago ; the hoary Hawthorn
would throw out as sweet a fragrance, and the
hidden Violet betray the bed where its blue sisters
slept, by the delicacy of its unaltered perfume: for
Time has not left a trace of his footmarks upon the
flowers. The same sunshine which lighted up the
silver of the Daisy, and deepened the pale gold of
the Primrose, when Chaucer went forth to do “ ob¬
servance to the May,” sleeps upon them in the
sweet spring-time of our own days; and although
the Poet would find no traces of the castles in which
he was ever a welcome guest, his favourite flowers
would be there to greet him with a silent welcome,
as they did in the days of old when he went forth
to listen to the song of the nightingale. And those
Roses which, between the wars of the rival houses
of York and Lancaster, caused blood enough to be
spilt to make the white for ever red, would be found
blowing, as peacefully in a few old gardens, as if the
blast of war had never been heard in the world;
bearing about them no trace of the strife and the
struggle, which the grave has for ever hushed, nor
a mark of the finger of Time upon the unsullied
bloom of their buds. Nor could the eye that then

TIME AND THE FLOWERS.

169

beheld them, tell that a flower had changed : for as
they looked on the morning of battle, and on the
evening of the same day, when the sun sank over a
field crimson with blood, so do they look now ; the
keen eye of Time, who discerneth the decay of all
things, seeth change in the flowers.

The fond, warm heart of lovely woman ceaseth
to beat—the liquid ruby no longer danceth through
the streaked violets of her blue veins—the opening
roses of her sweet and parted lips are closed for
ever—the silver melody of her harp-toned voice is
heard no more—the heaven of her eyes, the love¬
liest mirror in which the face of man was ever
imaged, is darkened—and she, the most beautiful
flower that was ever formed by the hand of Heaven,
sleeps unconsciously below ; while the flowers bloom
and fade a thousand times above her grave, yet
their beauty cheereth not, neither doth their per¬
fume gladden, the angel of earth that slumbereth
beneath. Over the blossoms above Time hath no
power : but the sweet bud which lieth buried deep
down, belongeth for a season unto him and Death,
and to us can never again be restored. And what
careth Time for other flowers ? he carrieth away
those which are twined around our hearts,—he
teareth the bleeding tendrils asunder: the vast
cities and huge temples are not his only prey, for
from the beginning he became a partner with Death.

170

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

and they have ever since divided all but the flowers
between them.

But let us not mourn: for from that hour when
the spirit of Abel went wailing over the bowers of
Eden, in the dim twilight of the early world, were
the immortal gates of heaven thrown open ; and
Time and Death looked aghast upon each other,
as they heard those golden doors swing wide, and
caught a glimpse of the first mortal that passed
through the cold gates of Death to that bright
abode of eternal sunshine, and those boundless
gardens filled with never-dying flowers. From that
moment they knew that their power extended not
beyond the grave ; that but for a brief space the
beauty of mortality should close, like a flower that
folds itself up and sleeps, while all the land around
is dark, then opens again beneath a new morning,
which had never before dawned upon the world;
whose golden beams would throw around it an
immortal halo, and give neither Time nor Death
again power over the drooping bud which those
sun-rays had touched. It was then that Love
alighted upon the earth, and proclaimed to all that
the hearts which remained true and faithful to each
other should be united again after death; that true
love was immortal, and could never perish ; that on
this cold, changeable earth, Happiness never arrived
to its pure perfection; for here Love was ever in its

TIME AND THE FLOWERS.

171

infancy, chilled by the fear of Death, and nipped by
the biting winds of sorrow; and that those who
treasured a true, unchanged, and devoted heart
through all these trials, should hereafter enjoy an
unbroken eternity of Love. And Love pointed to
the flowers, which the rains of Autumn beat down
and the bleak winds of Winter blew upon, showing
how, through all these trials, they struggled and
sprung up into a new life,— fairer than before they
faded, sweeter than when they perished; and that
such should be the reward hereafter for those who
endured without repining; who waited and served
in patience, whom neither prosperity nor adversity
could change, but went on for ever loving unto the
end, and proving that “ love is love for evermore.”
That for all such were immortal garlands woven in
the gardens above,— over which neither Death nor
Time had power: for they bore within them a
divinity that never could be affected by Time, nor
perish, even for a brief space, like the flowers.

172

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

THE HAPPY VALLEi.

It was a valley filled with sweetest sounds,

A languid music haunted everywhere,

Like those with which a summer-eve abounds,
From rustling corn and song-birds calling clear.
Down sloping uplands, which some wood surrounds,
With tinkling rills, just heard, but not too near,
And low of cattle on the distant plain,

And peal of far-off bells, now caught, then lost again.

It seemed like Eden’s angel-peopled vale,

So bright the sky, so soft the streams did flow;
Such tones came riding on the musk-winged gale,
The very air seemed sleepily to blow ;

And choicest flowers enamelled every dale,

Flushed with the richest sunlight’s rosy glow :

It was a valley drowsy with delight,

Such fragrance floated round, such beauty dimmed
the sight.

THE HAPPY VALLEY.

173

The golden-belted bees hummed in the air,

The tall, silk grasses bent and waved along;

The trees slept in the sleeping sunbeam’s glare,

The dreamy river chimed its undersong,

An d took its own free course without a care:

Amid the boughs did lute-tongued songsters
throng,

And the green valley throbbed beneath their lays,
While Echo Echo chased through many a leafy maze.

Sweet shapes were there, the Spirits of the Flowers,
Sent down to see the Summer-beauties dress,

And feed their fragrant mouths with silver showers ;

Their eyes peeped out from many a green recess,
And their fair forms made light the thick-set bowers ;

The very flowers seemed eager to caress
Such living sisters; and the boughs, long-leafed,
Clustered to catch the sighs their pearl-flushed
bosoms heaved.

One through her long loose liair was backward
peeping,

Or throwing, with raised arm, the locks aside;
Another high a pile of flowers was heaping,

Or looking love askance, and, when descried,

Her coy glance on the bedded-greensward keeping;

She pulled the flowers to pieces as she sighed,
Then blushed like timid daybreak, when the dawn
Looks crimson on the night, and then again’s with¬
drawn.

174

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

One, with her warm and milk-white arms outspread,
On tip-toe tripped along a sunlit glade;

Half turned the matchless sculpture of her head,
And half shook down her silken circling braid:
She seemed to float on air, so light she sped;

Her back-blown scarf an arched rainbow made.
She skimmed the wavy flowers as she passed by,
With fair and printless feet, like clouds along the
sky.

One sat alone within a shady nook,

With wildwood songs the lazy hour beguiling;

Or looking at her shadow in the brook,

Trying to frown, then at the effort smiling—

Ider laughing eyes mock’d every serious look;

’Twas as if Love stood at himself reviling:

She threw in flowers, and watched them float away,
Then at her beauty looked, then sang a sweeter lay.

Others on beds of roses lay reclined,

The regal flowers athwart their full lips thrown,
And in one fragrance both their sweets combined,
As if they on the self-same stem had grown:

So close were rose and lip together twined,

A double flower that from one bud had blown,
Till none could tell, so sweetly were they blended,
Where swelled the curving lip, or where the rose-
bloom ended.

THE HAPPY VALLEY.

175

One, half asleep, crushing the twined flowers,

Upon a velvet slope like Dian lay ;

When she within the twilight forest cowers;

Her looped-up tunic, tossed in disarray,

Showed rounded limbs too fair for earthly bowers—
They looked like roses on a cloudy day,

The warm white dulled amid the colder green;

The flowers too rough a couch that lovely shape to
screen.

Some lay like Thetis’ nymphs along the shore,

With ocean-pearl combing their golden locks,
And singing to the waves for evermore ;

Sinking like flowers at eve beside the rocks,

If but a sound, above the muffled roar

Of the low waves, was heard. In little flocks
Others went trooping through the wooded alleys,
Their kirtles glancing white, like streams in sunlit
valleys.

They were such forms as, imaged in the night,

Sail in our dreams across the heaven’s deep blue;
When the closed lid sees visions streaming bright,
Too beautiful to meet the naked view,

Like faces formed in clouds of silver light:

Women they were ! such as the angels knew—
Such as the Mammoth looked on, ere he fled,

Scared by the lovers’ wings, that streamed in sunset
red.

INDEX

OF THE

POETICAL LANGUAGE OP FLOWERS.

ABSENCE— Wormwood. Its derivation signifies, with¬
out sweetness; and so far may Absence be put down
as the bitterness of Love.

ACCOMMODATING DISPOSITION —Red Valerian.
Will grow on old walls, ruins, or almost anywhere;
hence its floral signification.

AFFECTIONATE REMEMBRANCE — Rosemary.
“ That’s for Remembrance: I pray you, love, re¬
member says the sweet Ophelia. And who would
wish to change the emblem of a flower which Shak-
speare has made immortal ?

AFTER-THOUGHT —Michaelmas Daisy. Which blows
when the flowers of summer have faded: coming
unaware, like a pleasant thought.

AMIABILITY —White Jasmine. Its sweetness, and
beauty, and star-like flowers, bear about them a
resemblance to an amiable lady. Gilbert White
saw this in the drooping form of the silver-stemmed
Birch, when he called it the “ Lady of the Wood.”
He would have added “ Amiable,” had it been starred
with beautiful flowers like the Jasmine.

ANGER— Gorse, Furze , or Whin. A pretty, though
formidable plant, armed up to the very gold of the
flowers, and piercing those who approach not its
beauty carefully.

ARTS— Acanthus. Worthily placed in honour of Calli¬
machus, who is said to have formed from its beauty

N

178

INDEX OF THE

the capital of the Corinthian column, as he saw it
growing over the grave of a young maiden.

ASSIGNATION— Pimpernel. Its regularity in opening
and shutting is well selected as denoting an appoint¬
ment between lovers, who are supposed to trust more
to the bright sunshine and sweet flowers, and the
feelings of their own hearts, than the measured
minutes of Time. It also denotes change in ihe
weather, as the flowers always close before rain. By
country people it is called the Shepherd’s Weather¬
glass.

BASHFULNESS— The Maiden’s Blush Bose. One of
the most beautiful and delicate of all the queenly
class of roses.

BEAUTY— The Bose. Its very name is beautiful: and
more than two thousand years ago it was worshipped
by the poets, and called the Queen of Flowers.

BELIEF — Passion Flower. Has become strangely
woven with our faith, from a fancied resemblance
to a cross and a crown, although it requires a great
effort of the imagination to call up either the one or
the other, Still its very name, in some measure,
renders it sacred to Faith and Belief.

CANDOUR— White Violet. See “ Legend of the Flower-
Spirits,” page 110.

CHASTITY— Orange Blossom. These flowers are com¬
monly worn now by the young bride; though we
know not why the Orange-blossom was selected as
the emblem of Chastity. The custom of wearing it
at weddings, we believe, first originated in France.

CONFESSION— Moss-rosebud. A beautiful and poetical
representation of the first confession of love, and so
alluded to by our old poets; Rosebuds having for
ages been emblems of youthful love.

LAHGUAGE OP FLOWERS.

179

CONSOLATION— Poppy. Denotes sleep, rest, repose:
all of which are well represented in its drowsy
properties and influence.

CONSTANCY— Canterbury-bell. Which we have already
described. See “ Old Saxon Flowers,” pages 53-55.

COQUETRY— Yellow Pay Lily. Called by the French
“the Beauty of a Day;” who reigning, as she
generally does, over so many admirers, coquettes
with all without loving one.

CRUELTY— Stinging Nettle. Wounds the hand that
presses it ever so gently. However duU the compre¬
hension of a lover might he, he could not well fail to
understand the meaning of this plant.

DECEITFUL CHARMS — Thorn Apple. A gorgeous
shrub, scarcely equalled in beauty, although its per¬
fume is considered unhealthy; hence its meaning
in floral language.

DECLARATION OF LOYE — Tulip. So received :
though far inferior to the Rosebud as an emblem of
the tender passion.

DELICACY— Bluebottle. A beautiful flower that grows
in the corn-fields, and is second to none in the
delicacy of its colouring.

DESERTION— Love-lies-Bleeding. Like the Forget-me-
Not, conveys a meaning in its very name.

DESIRE— Jonquil, or Poet's Narcissus. See Legend of
the “ Queen of May,” page 126.

DEVOTED AFFECTION — Honeysuckle or Woodbine.
A beautiful adaptation of a sweet mid flower to a
poetical sentence, and called by the French the
“ Links of Love,” from its clinging to the object it
adorns. See “ Legend of the Flower-Spirits,” pages
107, 108.

DEVOTED ATTACHMENT— Heliotrope. See “Flow¬
ers of Thought,” page 80.

180

INDEX OF THE

DIFFICULTY — Blackthorn. Which is so armed with
sharp and piercing thorns, that it is difficult to gather
the blossoms without tearing the hand.

DISAPPOINTED LOVE — Willow. Shakspeare made
Othello’s maid, poor Barbara, go about the house
hanging her head aside, and singing, “ Oh, willow,
willow! ” for he she loved proved false.

DISSENSION — The Stalk from which the Flower is
broken off. This is a better emblem than a broken
straw, and more expressive.

DOUBT — B lossom of the Apricot. Which requires gentle
rains, and warm, bright, sunshiny weather, to bring
the fruit to perfection. Any other delicate blossom
would have been as applicable an emblem.

ELEGANCE — Acacia. There is something about the
form of these beautiful flowers, as they droop and
wave in the breeze, that conveys an idea of elegance
and neatness, without being gaudy. They conjure
up the image of a lady chastely and not garishly
attired. The Yellow Acacia is also the emblem of
Friendship.

ENCHANTMENT — Vervain. Supposed to have been
used by the wizards of old in their spells, omens,
&c.; but that power is now transferred to the be¬
witching face of woman, for that is the true enchanter
of modern times.

ENVY— Bramble. Tears and rends everything it clings
to, and is the dread of fair ladies who venture to
ruralise in old forests, thick with underwood. The
Brier and Thorn are old emblems of Pain, Envy,
and Suffering, and are frequently alluded to by our
poets. Burns, in his “ Banks o’ Doon,” says,—

“And my false lover stole the rose,

But ah ! he left the thorn with me.”

ESTEEM — Sage. So called, no doubt, in floral lan-

LANGUAGE OF FLOWEKS.

181

guage, because the sages and philosophers of old
were held in high esteem for their gravity and
wisdom.

EVERLASTING PLEASURE —Sweet Pea. See Legend
of “ Cupid and Psyche,” page 133.

FALSEHOOD —Deadly Niylitshade. The fruit of which
produces poison and death, and cannot he pointed
out too soon to the innocent and unwary, that they
may he prevented from gathering it.

FIDELITY IN MISFORTUNE — Wallflower. A
beautiful emblem. See “ Legend of the Flower-
Spirits,” pages 108, 109.

FIRST EMOTIONS OF LOVE— Lilac. Its fragrance
and the fresh and healthy look of its blossoms, which
are amongst the first to unfold in the spring, are
well chosen as the representatives of early love.

FORESIGHT— Dandelion. The schoolboy’s clock and
oracle in every village: for who, when young, has
not blown its tufted down away, and at every breath
sent a wish after the feathered seeds of the Dande¬
lion ?

FORGET-ME-NOT —Forget me not. Nothing can be
more expressive than its name. See page 16, and
Poem, page 24.

FORSAKEN— Primrose. We have selected the Primrose
in honour of Milton, who says, “And the rathe
Primrose that forsaken dies; ” and for the sake of
the Bard of Paradise such a meaning ought it ever
to bear, instead of the Anemone.

FRIENDSHIP — Ivy, Denotes something true and
lasting, and not to be changed by the beating of the
wintry winds. It is a much better emblem of
Friendship than the Acacia, which some have
chosen, and as such is used by our early poets -

182

INDEX OX THE

GLOEY— Laurel. Was used by the ancients to crown
those heroes who returned from the wars victorious.
Chaucer, our oldest English poet, says,—

“He rode home crown’d with laurel, like a conqueror.”

GEATITUDE — Agrimony. A sweet, lowly plant, adorned
with small, beautiful, golden-coloured flowers, that
up-cone Eke a pile of stars. It is greatly valued by
the herb-gatherers in the country, and considered
hy many to make much better tea than half the
rubbish which is sold under that name.

GEIEF or PAIN— Marigold. Often alluded to by our
ancient poets, as bowing its head and mourning for
the absence of the sun.

HAPPY EETIEEMENT— Wild Harebell. See “Daisy
of the Dale,” page 100.

HOPE— Hawthorn. See Legend of the “Queen of
May,” page 116, and Poem of “ How May was first
made,” page 129.

HOSPITALITY— Oak. In former days the ancients
were wont to entertain their guests beneath a tree.
Under the oak of Mamre, Abraham welcomed the
angels.

HUMILITY — Broom. See Legend of “ Old Saxon
Flowers,” pages 50, 51.

ILL-NATUEE— Crab blossom. “ As sour as a crah,” has
long been an old English saying — hence its signifi¬
cation.

IMMOETALITY— Amaranth. One of the flowers which
was fahled to grow in the gardens of the gods.
Milton mentions it amongst those which blow in
heaven, and makes the angels in their adoration
cast down

“ Their crowns inwove with amaranth and gold:
Immortal amaranth,—a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,

Began to bloom,—but soon, for man’s offence.

To heaven removed.”

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

133

IMPATIENCE— Balsam. Which when touched is said
to throw the seeds out of the capsules with great
force ; and from this quality it is selected to express
irritation or ingratitude.

INDEPENDENCE— Wild-plum Blossom. One of the
oldest and hardiest of our English forest fruits,
which grows wild in hundreds of hedges, and cannot
he trained in gardens or orchards. It seems to love
best those rugged and solitary nooks which have
never been cultivated by the hand of man since the
creation, and is well chosen as an emblem of Inde¬
pendence.

INDIFFERENCE — Gandy-tuft. So it stands in all floral
alphabets, because its blossoms are scentless.

INGRATITUDE— Buttercup. So called in the Language
of Flowers, because it is supposed to injure the
cattle that feed upon it; and no honey can be ga¬
thered from the gaudy gold of its flowers : as it is
not very likely to figure in a lady’s nosegay, we will
leave the emblem as it is.

INNOCENCE— Daisy. See “ Daisy of the Dale,” page

\ 99, and Poem, 102.

INSINUATION — Bindweed, or Larger Convolvulus.
Which forces its way through every open space it
can find between the branches, until you can
scarcely discover another leaf besides its own, so
closely are its long, trailing stems twisted along
the boughs it has insinuated itself amongst.

LASTING BEAUTY— Stock, or Gillyflower, for the latter
is the old name of this truly English flower, which
our ancestors also called July flower It flourished
in the gardens of the old baronial castles hundreds
of years ago, and time and cultivation have rather
added to, than diminished its beauty: and it is,

184

INDEX OF THE

therefore, well deserving of the appellation of
Lasting Beauty.

LOVE — Myrtle. See Legend of the “ Forget-me-Not,’’
page 22.

LOVE’S CAPTIVE — Peach-blossom. Every one who has
beheld the rich bloom of the Peach must have been
captivated by its beauty, whether seen on the velvet
cheek of the fruit, or the delicate hue of its blossoms.

MATERNAL LOVE— Moss. The soft, green velvet
covering of many a spot which would otherwise be
brown and barren; it grows around and shelters the
stem of many a delicate flower, which would other¬
wise perish, and gives warmth to many a,’ chilly
nook; and so may fancy stretch, link by link, until
it traces in it a resemblance to Maternal Love.

MESSAGE — Iris. So called from the messenger of
Juno, one of the Oceanides ; also after the rainbow.
Her business seems to have been to cut matters
short, and no doubt amongst the young deities of
Olympus she often carried the important message
of love, and “popped the question.” There are
about fifty varieties of the Lis.

MODESTY —Blue Violet. See “Violet of the Valley,”
page 33, and “ Flowers of Love,” page 36.

MUSIC — Eeeds. Pan, the god of Shepherds, is said to
have first formed the Arcadian pipes from Reeds,
which he called Syrinx, in honour of a beautiful
nymph who was changed into a Reed.

NEGLECTED BEAUTY — Meadow-sweet. My pre¬
decessors have been pleased to make this beautiful
and fragrant flower, which is called the Queen of
the Meadow, and whose perfume is sweet as that of
the Hawthorn, the emblem of Uselessness. In eon.
tradistinction to the meaning they have assigned to

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

185

it, I have dared to christen it the “Neglected
Beauty,” for a sweeter flower blows not in all the
green meadows of pastoral England, and Neglected
Beauty it shall ever represent to me, for it has been
too long overlooked. Miss Twamley, in her “ Wild
Flowers,” says — and honour to her for saying it,—
“ Its tall, red-tinted stems, handsome jagged leaves,
and foam-like flowers, so rich in scent, and so very
beautiful, well deserve the title so often bestowed
upon it of ‘ Queen of the Meadows.’ The French
and Italian names have both the same meaning —

‘ Meadow-Queen.’ It fills the summer air with a
scent like new-mown hay and hawthorn.” Fair
readers ! shall this sweet flower, so admirably advo¬
cated by a lady, any longer stand disgraced as the
emblem of Uselessness, or mil you not rather step
forward and defend it as a Neglected Beauty, until
some happier emblem is chosen? Just fancy one of
your own sweet selves, for want of an advocate, so
thrown back and insulted !

NEGLECTED LOVE — Laurustinus. See Legend of
the “ Forget-me-Not,” page 23.

PATIENCE — Bock. The haunter of every wayside,
where it flourishes in spite of the dust and footsteps
that trample it down.

PEACE — Olive-branch. One of the oldest emblems on
record.

PENSIVENESS — Cowslip. Called by our old poets the
Sweet Nun of the Fields, and immortalised in
Shakspeare’s “ Midsummer’s Night’s Dream,” where,
speaking of Titania, he says,—

“ Tlie Cowslips tall lier pensioners be ;

In their gold coats spots you see :

Those be rubies, fairy favours,

those freckles live their savours.”

186

INDEX OF THE

The flowers generally droop, and thus may be said
to hang their pensive heads.

PERFECTION — Wild Strawberry. The Deautiful
flowers of which may often he seen trailing about
the hanks of our woodsides and hedgerows.

PITY— Andromeda. A beautiful flower, found by Lin¬
naeus growing on a rock, and reminding him of the
lovely nymph, whom Perseus rescued from the sea-
monster, by changing it into a rock: — from this
rock all hard-hearted men and unfeeling lovers are
supposed to have sprung. It is an appropriate em¬
blem of Pity.

POETRY— Eglantine, or Sweet-Brier. I will not pause
to inquire why, for Poetry is a thorny sweetness,
and those who touch it must not mind a prick or
two. Even if the world admire not its flowers, there
is a sweetness about its very leaves; and to he
nestled near them in a green nook is to enjoy a
pleasure which needs no praise to enhance it. As
Touchstone says of Audrey, in “ As You Like It,”—
“ Though a poor thing, it is mine own; ” and the
Sweet-Brier, Rose, or Eglantine, has ever been a
favourite flower with the English poets. So we
accept the emblem for want of a better.

POWER — Crown Imperial. So called by Shakspeare in
the “Winter’s Tale.” It is also, as its name sug¬
gests, the emblem of majesty.

PREFERENCE— Apple-Blossom. See Legend of “How
the Rose became Red,” page 69.

PURE LOVE— Pink. See “Violet of the Valley,” page 31.

PURITY OF HEART— White Water-lily. See “Old
Saxon Flowers,” page 49.

RECONCILIATION — Hazel. The best way for young
lovers to make up a quarrel is to walk into a beau¬
tiful wood, and seat themselves upon the flowers

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

187

under the transparent leaves of the Hazel, for there
they will soon become reconciled. Another good
method is to join a Nutting party in Autumn, for it
is a very old saying, “ Many nuts many marriages
this old amusement, no doubt, having done much
towards match-making.

REFUSAL— Snapdragon. So called from the closing
lips of the flower, which will not open until rudely
pressed.

REGRET — Asphodel. A flower that in ancient times
was planted around the graves of the dead, and was
also supposed to grow in the gardens of Elysium.
Its real signification is, regret and sorrow for the
dead.

REPOSE — Convolvulus. See Legend of the “ Queen of
May,” page 126.

RETURN OF HAPPINESS —Lily of the Valley. See
Legend of “ How the Rose became Red,” page 67.

RICHES — Corn. The most usual representation of
wealth.

RUDENESS — Bur. It is a favourite amusement
amongst country girls to pelt their rustic swains
with the bur-dock, and that coat must be very
threadbare to which they will not adhere. It is
a rude and rustic way of making love.

SADNESS —Withered Leaves. An apt emblem in love
as well as in nature, telling us that the beauty and
brightness of summer are departed.

SEPARATION —A Sprig of the Rose-tree, from which the
hud is plucked.

SILENCE —White Rose. See “Flowers of Thought,”
page 77.

SIMPLICITY —White Rosebud. A chaste and beautiful
emblem of simple innocence.

188

INDEX OF THE

SINCERITY— Fern. See Legend of the “ Daisy of the
Dale,” page 101.

SNARE or DECEIT— Catchfly. This white flower may
he found in almost every sandy field in June; and
many a poor fly that is attracted to it by its odour,
finds death amid its entangling leaves.

SOLITUDE— Heath. See “Flowers of Thought,”
page 78.

SORROW— Yew. One of the oldest monuments that
our ancestors erected above the dead.

SYMPATHY— Thrift. A good old English name, which
means more than can be expressed in half-a-dozen
words, and ought never to be forgotten by young
lovers; for thriftiness brings comfort, independence,
and everything which, with love, makes life happy ;
and should misfortune come, it meets with more
sympathy than idleness and extravagance.

TASTE — Fuchsia. See Legend of the “Daisy of the
Dale,” page 101.

THOUGHT— Pansy. So called by Shakspeare, and put
into the mouth of that “ Rose of May,” the fair
Ophelia, who says,—

“ There’s Pansies, that’s for thoughts.”

See Legend of “ Flowers of Thought,” page 74.

TIME — White Poplar. The ancients traced in it a re¬
semblance to Time, because its leaves are dark on
one side and bright on the other; and for this they
selected it as the emblem of day and night.

TIMIDITY —Sensitive Plant. A flower so delicate that
it shrinks from the touch, and shuns even the strong
light of day, only expanding in its full beauty to¬
wards the cool of the evening. There are two or
three varieties of this flower; one of which bears
full, round, pink blossoms, another white, and a

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

189

third yellow. Shelley has immortalised the sensi¬
tive plant in one of his most beautiful poems.

TIES OF LOVE — Tendrils of Climbing Plants. Called
by the French, in floral language, “ The Chains of
Love.”

TRUTH —The Wild Hyacinth, or Bluebell of Spring. The
universal favourite of both old and young, that lights
up the dark recesses of the forest, and looks as if a
blue cloud had fallen from the face of heaven, and was
sleeping there. It is the earliest spring flower that
hears old England’s favourite colour of “ true blue.”

UNCONSCIOUS BEAUTY — Mignionette. A flower
whose sweetness all have inhaled. It is linked to
a long sentence in the Language of Flowers, and
made to express “ Your qualities surpass your
charms.” But I have preferred making this little
darling the emblem of Unconscious Beauty, as
equally expressive in the sense, and more emblem¬
atical of so sweet and lowly a flower.

UNITED — Lancaster Bose. Associated with history,
and the union that took place between the rival
houses of York and Lancaster, after the peace of
England had so long been broken by their wars.

YOUR LOOKS FREEZE ME — Ice-plant. A most
expressive emblem.

YOUTHFUL HOPE — Snoivdrop. In distinction to the
Hawthorn, which is the old emblem of Hope, I have
associated the Snowdrop with Youth, as it is the
first flower which blows upon the edge of winter.

YOUTHFULNESS— Crocus . Endeared to us as one of
the first flowers that breaks through the prison-
house of winter, throwing a golden light upon our
garden borders like the earliest sunshine of spring.
It is well chosen as the emblem of Youth.

FLOWERS

AND THEIR

EMBLEMATIC SIGNIFICATIONS.

Acacia ........

. Elegance.

Acanthus .

Agrimony .

. Gratitude.

Amaranth .

. Immortality.

Andromeda .......

. Pity.

Apple-blossom .

. Preference.

Apricot-blossom .

. Doubt.

Asphodel ..

. Regret.

Balsam ........

. Impatience.

Bindweed .

. Insinuation.

Blackthorn .

Bluebottle .

. Delicacy.

Bramble ..

. Envy.

Broom .

. Humility.

Bur .

. Rudeness.

Buttercup ...

. Ingratitude.

Candy-tuft .

Canterbury-bell .

Catchjly .

Convolvulus .

Corn .

Cowslip .

Crab-blossom ......

Crocus .

Crown Imperial .

Daisy .

Daisy, Michaelmas ....

Dandelion ..

Deadly Nightshade ....

Dock .

Eglantine . or Sweet-Brier . .

. Poetry.

FLOKAL EMBLEMS.

l&l

Fern .

Forget-me-Not .

Fuchsia .

. Sincerity.

. Forget me not.

. Taste.

Gorse .

. Anger.

Harebell .

Hawthorn ..

Hazel .

Heath .

Heliotrope .

Honeysuckle, or Woodbine .
Hyacinth .

. Happy Retirement.

. Hope.

. Reconciliation.

. Solitude.

. Devoted Attachment.

. Devoted Affection.

. Truth.

Ice-Plant .

Iris .

Ivy .

. Your looks freeze me.

. Messenger.

. Friendship.

Jasmine , White .

Jonquil, White .

. Amiableness.

. Desire.

Laurel .

Laurustinus .

Lilac .

Lily of the Valley ....
Love-lies-Bleeding ....

. Glory.

. Neglected Love.

. First Emotions of Love.
. Return of Happiness.

. Desertion.

Marigold .

Meadow-sweet .

Mignionette .

Moss .

Myrtle .

. Grief or Pain.

. Neglected Beauty.

. Unconscious Beauty.

. Maternal Love.

. Love.

Nettle, stinging .Cruelty.

Oak .Hospitality.

Olive-branch .Peace.

Orange-blossom .Chastity.

Pansy .. Thought.

Passion-Jloiver .Belief.

Peach-blossom .Love’s Captive.

Pimpernel .Assignation, or Change.

Pink .Pure Love.

Poppy .Consolation.

Primrose .Forsaken.

192

FLORAL EMBLEMS.

Heeds .

. Music.

Rose .

. Beauty.

Rose, Lancaster .

. Union.

Rose, Maiden's Blush . . .

. Bashfulness.

Rose, White .

. Silence.

Rosebud, Moss .

. Confession of Love.

Rosebud, White .

. Simplicity.

Rosemary .

. Remembrance.

Sage .

. Esteem.

Sensitive Plant .

. Timidity.

Snapdragon .

. Refusal.

Snowdrop .

. Youthful Hope.

Sprig of the Rose, flowerless .

. Separation.

Slock, or Gillyflower . . .

. Lasting Beauty. \

Sweet Pea .

. Pleasure.

Tendrils of Climbing Plants .

. Ties of Love.

Thorn Apple .

. Deceitful Charms.

Thrift .

. Sympathy.

Tulip .

. Declaration of Love.

Valerian, Red .

(Accommodating Dis-

' ( position.

Vervain .

. Enchantment.

Violet, Blue .

. Modesty.

Violet, White .

. Candour.

Wallflower .

. Fidelity in Misfortune.

Water-lily, White ....

. Purity of Heart.

White Poplar .

. Time.

Wild -plum Blossom . . .

. Independence.

Wild Strawberry ....

. Perfection.

Willow .

. Disappointed Love.

Withered Leaves ....

. Sadness.

Wormwood .

. Absence.

Yellow Day Lily ....

. Coquetry.

Yew .

. Sorrow.

Thomas Harrild, Printer, Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, London.

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