The language of flowers The floral offering ; a token of affection and esteem ; comprising the language and poetry of flowers
bows were made of the incorruptible wood of this tree, and their arrows
were pointed with its thorns. About a century ago, this tree was
introduced into France by Robin, the botanist. It is a large, handsome
tree, of quick growth, elegant foliage, and beautiful, rose-coloured
blossoms.
* * * * *
Celestial happiness! Whene’er she stoops
To visit earth, one shrine the goddess finds,
And one alone, to make her sweet amends
For absent heaven--the bosom of a friend,
Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft,
Each other’s pillow to repose divine.
_Young._
* * * * *
The friend
Who smiles when smoothing down the lonely couch,
And does kind deeds, which any one can do
Who has a feeling spirit,--such a friend
Heals with a searching balsam.
_Percival._
* * * * *
Lay this into your breast:
Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best.
_Webster._
* * * * *
O summer friendship,
Whose flattering leaves, that shadowed us in
Our prosperity, with the least gust drop off
In the autumn of adversity!
_Massinger._
* * * * *
When thou art near,
The sweetest joys still sweeter seem,
The brightest hopes more bright appear,
And life is all one happy dream,
When thou art near.
_Robert Sweney._
* * * * *
That friendship’s raised on sand,
Which every sudden gust of discontent,
Or flowing of our passions, can change
As if it ne’er had been.
_Massinger._
MOSS.... _Maternal Love_.
Moss is selected to be the emblem of maternal love, because, like that
love, it glads the heart when the winter of adversity overtakes us, and
when summer friends have deserted us. Rousseau, so long the prey of his
own passions, and tormented by those of other men, soothed the latter
years of his life by the study of nature. The Mosses, in particular,
attracted his attention. It is these, he would say, that give a look of
youth and freshness to the fields, at the moment when the flowers have
gone to their graves. In winter the Mosses offer to the eye of the lover
of nature their carpet of emerald green, their secret nuptials, and the
charming mysteries of the urns and amphoræ which enclose their
posterity. It is asserted that without the Mosses, part of our globe
would be uninhabitable. At the northern extremity of the earth, the
Laplanders cover their subterranean abodes with Moss, and thus defy the
longest and most terrible winters. Their numerous herds of reindeer have
no other food, yet they supply their owners with delicious milk,
nutritious flesh, and warm clothing; thus combining for the poor
Laplander all the advantages that we derive from the horse, cow, and
sheep.
* * * * *
There is none
In all this cold and hollow world, no fount
Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within
A mother’s heart.
_Mrs. Hemans._
* * * * *
The docile, swift Reindeer! Oh, when I was a child,
I loved all strange fantastic tales, the wondrous and the wild;
I read about the “Hundred Nights,” in the Arabian Tales,
That tell of Genii, sprites, and dwarfs, of gold and diamond vales.
I read of Eastern gardens and palaces so rare,
And of Sultans and Sultanas, the cruel and the fair.
I read of Robin Crusoe! Ah! how I loved that book!
Nor even yet hath its strong charm wholly my mind forsook.
I read of voyages without end; of travels many too,
And fairy-tales and story-books--of these, good sooth, not few.
But I remember, more than all, I loved to think and hear
Of thee--thou strong and beautiful--thou swift and good Reindeer!
I remember in my earliest home, a dim antique beaufet,
And high upon its many shelves, things manifold were set.
Some piles of dark old books there were, amid the motley crowd,
And when tall enough to reach them, oh! glad was I, and proud.
And there I found old Æsop, whose fables we all know,
And Cookery-books of ancient dates, most grim and well worn too.
These I just peeped at, and put back--and still went groping on
Deep into that small mine of wealth that I so late had won.
Soon with some daring tugs, I brought a lumbering volume slap
Down on the floor! I sat down too, and dragged it on my lap.
The binding was antique and worn--the title-page was out,
And yet the treasure won from me a child’s exultant shout;
For there were pictures many, of beast, and fish, and bird;
And _thou_ wert there, thou good Reindeer, of whom so much I’d heard.
And that great heavy ancient book was such a prize to me!
It told me of the monstrous whale, and the small good honey-bee;
It told me of the elephant, the tiger, the gazelle,
Of the vast luxuriant jungles, and the lone, bright desert well;
Of humming-birds that sip the dew of flowers as they fly,
Of prairies wild, and wide, and green; of snowy mountains high:
I read there of the Northern sea, where iceberg islands float,
And crush the great three-masted ship, as ’twere a cockle-boat;
I read about the harmless seals, and the shaggy Polar bear,
And the mighty troops of hungry wolves that roam and riot there.
I read of Nature’s glorious works, and wondering went on,
And found before me pleasures, whose round will ne’er be done.
And in my good old-fashioned book I read of herb and tree,
That were food for man, and beast and bird, and for the honey-bee.
I read of grove-like banyans, of cedars broad and tall,
Of the lofty towering palm, and the Moss and lichen small.
And then I found how wondrously the poor Reindeer was fed,
When over all his frozen land deep winter’s snow lay spread;
How GOD had bid the barren ground produce this strange small thing,
On which whole countless herds of deer are ever pasturing:
How, in the woods of scattered pine abundantly it grows,
And clothes the earth for many a mile beneath the trackless snows;
How the sagacious Reindeer delves, and scents his onward way,
Till he reaches his scant mossy food, that doth his toil repay.
Oh! see him with his master’s sledge! How swift they glide along,
Like a bird, or a fairy car I’ve read of, in some quaint old song.
Away! o’er the boundless snowy waste, so glittering and bright:
Away!--through the dark pine forest, as gloomy as the night:
Away o’er the frozen lake, the river, and the fen,
Away! Away!--Ye have winsome steeds, ye little Lapland men!
Ay, winsome steeds in sooth, with their antlers branched and high;
So sure of foot, and swift of pace, they truly seem to fly.
Ye need no palace-stables, no saucy pampered grooms,
To stretch your cracking purse-strings, and strut in liveried plumes;
No heavy half-year’s bills, for oats, beans, straw, and hay.
The forest yields them lodgment, and food, where’er they stray.
And thus we find, in every clime, things beautiful and fair,
Each fitted to fulfil its task of use and beauty there;
And I remember thinking so, when, a little child, I read
The history of the good Reindeer, and the Moss whereon they fed.
_Louisa A. Twamley._
* * * * *
Mother! dear mother! the feelings nurst
As I hung at thy bosom, clung round thee first.
’Twas the earliest link in love’s warm chain--
’Tis the only one that will long remain:
And as year by year, and day by day,
Some friend still trusted drops away,
Mother! dear mother! oh! dost thou see
How the shortened chain brings me nearer thee?
_Willis._
* * * * *
Bishop Mant thus describes the place where Mosses grow:--
On upland hill, in lowland vale,
And where the frigid vapours sail,
Mantling the Alpine mountain hoar,
On granite-rock, or boggy moor,
On peat-clad marsh, or sandy heath,
On hillock’s grassy slope; beneath
The hedge-road fence, and on the bank,
Fringed with the plumed osier dank,
Of streamlet, pool, or waterfall;
On wave-washed stone, on plastered wall;
On tree of forest, or of fruit,
The bark-clad trunk, the heaving root;
Or where the spring with oozing slime
Slides trickling down the rifted lime;
Or where the grav’ly pathway leads
Through shady woods, o’er plashy meads:--
Exulting in the wintry cold,
Their cups the mossy tribes unfold;
Fringed, and beneath a coping hid
Of filmy veil, and convex lid,
On many a thread-like stalk, bespread
With yellow, brown, or crimson red,
In contrast to the leaves of green,
A velvet carpet, where the queen
Of fairies might in triumph lie
And view the elvish revelry;
Soft as the cygnet’s downy plume,
Or produce of the silkworm’s loom,
Survey them by the unaided eye,
And, if the seeds within you lie
Of love for natural beauty true,
They’ll shoot enlivened at the view
Of hair or feather-mantled stem,
The waving stalk, the fringed gem,
Enveloping its chaliced fruit;
So fair, so perfect, so minute,
That bursting forth, the seeds may seem
A floating cloud of vapoury steam.
Or by the microscopic glass
Surveyed, you’ll see how far surpass
The works of nature, in design,
And texture delicately fine,
And perfectness of every part,
Each effort of mimetic art.
A mother’s love--how sweet the name!
What is a mother’s love?
--A noble, pure, and tender flame,
Enkindled from above,
To bless a heart of earthly mould;
The warmest love that can grow cold;
This is a mother’s love.
_Montgomery._
* * * * *
Dear mother, of the thousand strings which waken
The sleeping harp within the human heart,
The longest kept in tune, though oft forsaken,
Is that in which the mother’s voice bears part;
Her still small voice bids e’en the careless ear
To turn with deep and pure delight to hear.
_Miss E. J. Eames._
DANDELION.... _The Rustic Oracle_.
The Dandelion is the most common of flowers. It is found in the four
quarters of the globe, near the pole as beneath the equator, on the
margin of rivers and streams as well as on sterile rocks. It serves the
shepherd instead of a clock, while its feathery tufts are his barometer,
predicting calm or storm. The globes formed by the seeds of the
Dandelion are used for other purposes. If you are separated from the
object of your love, pluck one of those feathery spheres, charge each of
the little feathers with a tender thought; turn toward the spot where
the loved one dwells; blow, and the aërial travellers will faithfully
convey your secret message to his or her feet. If you wish to know if
that dear one is thinking of you, blow again; and if a single aigrette
is left upon the stalk, it is a proof that you are not forgotten.
As thinks
The mariner of home,
When doomed through many a dreary waste
Of waters yet to roam,--
Thus doth my spirit turn to thee,
My guiding star o’er life’s wild sea.
_Mrs. Embury._
* * * * *
Dandelion, with globe of down,
The schoolboy’s clock in every town,
Which the truant puffs amain,
To conjure lost hours back again.
_Howitt._