The language of flowers The floral offering ; a token of affection and esteem ; comprising the language and poetry of flowers
A heap of wealth is gathered at our door?
How thirsts the yearning soul for something more,
Some good that lies beyond its keenest ken!
_MacKellar._
* * * * *
Can gold calm passion, or make reason shine?
Can we dig peace, or wisdom, from the mine?
Wisdom to gold prefer: for ’tis much less
To make our fortune, than our happiness.
_Young._
* * * * *
It’s no in titles nor in rank;
It’s no in wealth like Lon’on bank,
To purchase peace and rest;
It’s no in making muckle mair:
It’s no in books: it’s no in lear,
To make us truly blest:
If happiness hae not her seat
And centre in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest.
_Burns._
HELIOTROPE.... _Devoted Affection_.
The Heliotrope is a native of Peru. It is often confounded with the
Sunflower, though it is of a different genus. The blossoms of the
Heliotrope form clusters of very small, delicate, fragrant flowers,
generally of a faint purple colour or white, sometimes red, or
bluish-white. It is a general favourite of the fair sex, and is
considered as the emblem of devoted affection, on account of its face
being ever turned to the sun, which it seems to worship. The Heliotrope
was introduced into Europe in 1740, by the celebrated Jussieu.
* * * * *
As laurel leaves, that cease not to be green,
From parching sonne, nor yet from winter’s threat,--
As hardened oak, that fears no sworde so keen,--
As flint for tool, in twaine that will not fret,--
As fast as rock, or pillar surely set,--
So fast am I to you, and aye have been,
Assuredly whom I cannot forget;
For joy, for paine, for torment, nor for tene;
For loss, for gaine, for frowning, nor for threat;
For ever one, yea, both in calm and blast,
Your faithful love, and will be to the last!
_Old Poet. 1555._
* * * * *
Yet do not think I doubt thee;
I know thy truth remains;
I would not live without thee,
For all the world contains.
Thou art the star that guides me
Along life’s troubled sea;--
Whatever fate betides me,
This heart still turns to thee.
_G. P. Morris._
* * * * *
He on his side
Leaning half-raised, with looks of cordial love
Hung over her enamoured, and beheld
Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep,
Shot forth peculiar graces.
_Milton._
* * * * *
Like Ixion,
I look on Juno, feel my heart turn to cinders
With an invisible fire; and yet, should she
Deign to appear clothed in a various cloud,
The majesty of the substance is so sacred
I durst not clasp the shadow. I behold her
With adoration, feast my eye, while all
My other senses starve; and, oft frequenting
The place which she makes happy with her presence,
I never yet had power, with tongue or pen,
To move her to compassion, or make known
What ’tis I languish for; yet I must gaze still,
Though it increase my flame.
_Massinger._
MIGNONETTE.... _Your Qualities surpass your Charms_.
The Mignonette was introduced into Europe from Egypt, in 1750. It
flowers from the beginning of spring until the end of autumn. Linnæus,
who gave it the name of _Reseda odorata_, compares its perfume with that
of ambrosia.
* * * * *
No gorgeous flowers the meek Reseda grace,
Yet sip, with eager trunk, yon busy race
Her simple cup, nor heed the dazzling gem
That beams in Fritillaria’s diadem.
_Evans._
* * * * *
I see her now within my view,--
A spirit, yet a woman too!--
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which do meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food.
_Wordsworth._
* * * * *
Time has small power
O’er features the mind moulds. Roses where
They once have bloomed a fragrance leave behind;
And harmony will linger on the wind;
And suns continue to light up the air,
When set; and music from the broken shrine Breathes,
it is said, around whose altar-stone His flower the votary has ceased to
twine:--Types of the beauty that, when youth is gone, Breathes from the
soul whose brightness mocks decline.
_George Hill._
* * * * *
Rudely thou wrongest my deare heart’s desire,
In finding fault with her too portly pride;
The thing which I do most in her admire,
Is of the world unworthy most envied.
For in those lofty looks is close implied
Scorn of base things,--disdain of foul dishonour,
Threatening rash eyes which gaze on her so wide
That loosely they ne dare to look upon her!
_Spenser._
JASMINE.... _Amiability_.
The Jasmine is a happy emblem of an amiable disposition. In all
situations, it suffers the gardener to train its slender branches into
any form he chooses: most commonly forming a living tapestry for arbours
and garden walls, and everywhere throwing out a profusion of delicate
and charming flowers, which perfume the air. The poets have showered
their praise upon this plant, and all unite in considering it the emblem
of the winsome quality of amiability. After paying a glowing tribute to
the beauty and sweetness of the Violet, Thomas Miller, the
“basket-maker” poet, thus speaks of the Jasmine:--
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 porcupine.” Beautiful are its long, drooping, dark-green shoots,
trailing around the trellis-work of a door-way, like a green curtain
embroidered with silver flowers; while here and there the queenly
Moss-Rose, creeping in and out like the threads of a fanciful tapestry,
its crimson face amid the embowered green,--a beautiful lady peeping
through a leaf-clad casement.
* * * * *
A lover on the Indian Sea,
Sighing for her left far behind,
Inhaled the scented Jasmine tree,
As it perfumed the evening wind:
Shoreward he steered at dawn of day,
And saw the coast all round embowered,
And brought a starry sprig away,
For her by whose green cot it flowered.
And oft when from that scorching shore,
In after years 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 thatched roof about his home,
Where she he loved then safely slept.
_Miller._
WOODBINE, OR HONEYSUCKLE.... _Affection_.
This elegant, climbing shrub at once delights the eye and gratifies the
smell, by the exquisite fragrance of its blossoms; while it confers on
those humble dwellings in the rural districts of England and America, a
character of cheerfulness unknown in other countries. It begins to
flower in May, and puts forth its blossoms until the end of summer. It
is chosen as the emblem of affection, from its clinging to trees and
lattices with all the ardour and constancy of a weak, confiding woman,
clinging to one of the stronger, sterner sex, in prosperity and in
adversity.
* * * * *
Copious of flowers, the woodbine pale and wan,
But well compensating her sickly looks
With never-cloying odours, early and late.
_Cowper._
* * * * *
Sister, sister, what dost thou twine?
I am weaving a wreath of the wild Woodbine;
I have streaked it without like the sunset hue,
And silvered 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.
_Miller._
* * * * *
A Honeysuckle, on the sunny side,
Hung round the lattices its fragrant trumpets.
_Miss Landon._
* * * * *
Ah! could you look into my heart,
And watch your image there!
You would own the sunny loveliness
Affection makes it wear.
_Mrs. Osgood._
* * * * *
The pensive soul with ardent thirsting turns
To heaven and earth to seek its fill of love.
_MacKellar._
* * * * *
Oh! there is one affection which no stain
Of earth can ever darken;--when two find,
The softer and the manlier, that a chain
Of kindred taste has fastened mind to mind.
’Tis an attraction from all sense refined;
The good can only know it; ’tis not blind,
As love is unto baseness; its desire
Is but with hands entwined to lift our being higher.
_Percival._
COWSLIP.... _Pensiveness_.
The solitary Cowslip was known to the old English poets as the “sweet
nun of the fields,” and has been immortalized in “Shakspeare’s Midsummer
Night’s Dream.” In America, the Cowslip may be found from Maine to
Missouri. Its hues are not gaudy, but winning; and the whole appearance
of the flower, as it blooms in some solitary vale, or on some gentle
slope, expresses the idea of pensive beauty.
* * * * *
The rose its blushes need not lend,
Nor yet the lily with them blend,
To captivate my eyes:
Give me a cheek the heart obeys,
And, sweetly mutable, displays
Its feelings as they rise;
Features, where pensive, more than gay,
Save when a rising smile doth play,
The sober thoughts you see;
Eyes that all soft and tender seem,
And kind affections round them beam,
But most of all on me.
_Frisbie._
* * * * *
There is a mood,
(I sing not to the vacant and the young,)
There is a kindly mood of melancholy
That wings the soul, and points her to the skies.
_Dyer._
* * * * *
Oh! fragrant dwellers of the lea,
When first the wildwood rings
With each sound of vernal minstrelsy,
When fresh the green grass springs!
What can the blessed spring restore
More gladdening than your charms?
Bringing the memory once more
Of lovely fields and farms!
Of thickets, breezes, birds, and flowers;