The language of flowers The floral offering ; a token of affection and esteem ; comprising the language and poetry of flowers
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among her worshippers.
_Bryant._
* * * * *
The pure deep sky above may figure Truth;
Though mists and clouds may long obscure its face,
Gaze with patience, and ere long they’ll pass.
_Peerbold._
* * * * *
’Tis not enough your counsel shall be true;
Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.
Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed as things forgot.
Without good breeding, truth is disapproved;
That only makes superior sense beloved.
_Pope._
* * * * *
Truth needs no flowers of speech.
_Pope._
* * * * *
When fiction rises pleasing to the eye,
Men will believe, because they love the lie;
But truth herself, if clouded with a frown,
Must have some solemn proofs to pass her down.
_Churchill._
* * * * *
All truth is precious, if not all divine,
And what dilates the powers must needs refine.
_Cowper._
* * * * *
Verily there is nothing so false, that a sparkle of truth is not in it.
_Tupper._
* * * * *
This above all, to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
_Shakspeare._
* * * * *
What is truth?--a staff rejected.
_Wordsworth._
* * * * *
It is a weary and a bitter task
Back from the lip the burning word to keep,
And to shut out heaven’s air with falsehood’s mask,
And in the dark urn of the soul to heap
Indignant feelings--making e’en of thought
A buried treasure.
_Mrs. Hemans._
THE SWEET FLAG--ACORUS CALAMUS.... _Grace_.
One autumn eve I sat alone
Beside my study fire;
I’d written long, and eyes and head
And fingers ’gan to tire.
I rose to shut my desk, and go--
Quite weary--half asleep--
A book fell open as I moved;
E’en sleepy eyes must peep;
And, pictured on its page, I saw
The portrait of a friend,
Whose smiling face bade my dull thoughts
To happy memories wend.
It was the tall, sweet-scented Flag,
Lay pictured there so true,
I could have deemed some fairy hand
The faithful image drew.
The falchion-leaves, all long and sharp;
The stem, like a tall leaf too,
Except where, halfway up its side,
A cone-shaped flower-spike grew,
Like a lady’s finger, taper, long,
From end to end arrayed
In close scale-armour, that was all
Of starry flowers made.
If you could fancy fairy folk
Would mimic works of ours,
You’d think their dainty fingers here
Had wrought mosaic flowers.
The tiny petals, neatly formed,
With geometric skill,
Are each one so exactly shaped,
Its proper place to fill.
And stamens, like fine golden dust,
Spangle the flowerets green;
Aught more compact and beautiful,
Mine eyes have never seen!
How well I know when first I met
The Sweet Flag’s graceful form;
’Twas on a glowing summer’s day,
Mid hearts as bright and warm.
Mid hearts as warm as sunny gleams,
And eyes as kind and bright,
And spirits that, like sunshine too,
Are cheering, loved, and light.
We gathered there the Acorus
From Claremont’s quiet lake;
And home with me, full many a mile,
I did the pale flower take.
’Twas new to me, but yet is not
So very scarce and rare,
As many a river knoweth well;
None better than the Yare!
For by its banks abundantly
The fragrant tall leaves grow;
Singing with reedy rustling voice,
Whene’er soft breezes blow.
The Mayor of Norwich holds in June
His annual feast and show;
And to the grand cathedral church
Processions with him go.
And then the gray and solemn aisles,
And all the ancient floor,
Are with the aromatic leaves
Bestrewèd thickly o’er.
In by-gone days the costly fumes
Of incense here were shed;
But sweeter far the fragrant gush
That greets each passing tread.
In the sordid streets are bowers built,
Of these same reeds as well,
Plaited and wrought like basket-work,
All full of spicy smell.
And many a queer and quaint device
Are round about them made,
Of the gold and red ranunculus,
In varied shape and shade.
Oh! many a young and guileless heart
Is blithe as blithe can be,
To walk through Norwich streets that morn,
The decked out bowers to see.
In far gone times, ere folks had grown
So mighty nice and clever--
When carpets were unheard-of things,
And druggets dreamed of never--
When wide bare floors of good hard mud
Or stone, not over even,
Were all that unto knightly strides,
Or dames’ light steps, were given--
When common rushes strewed the halls
Where royal banquets were--
How precious must these reeds have been
Beside the banks of Yare!
I can fancy high and dainty dames
Sending stout serving-men
To gather store of these sweet Flags,
From river, pool, and fen.
Perhaps to strew a lady’s bower,
Perhaps the castle hall,
Where warlike lords and knights should meet
At stately festival.
How often in the chapel too,
The fresh-thrown reeds might lie;
While the tears and smiles of a bridal band
Went softly passing by!
And they were there when sorrow deep
Wept the untimely doom
Of young, and bright, and beautiful,
Borne to the ancestral tomb.
In sooth it is an ancient thing,
This new-found friend of mine,
And many a scene of joy and wo
Hath it known in days lang syne.
I love it for them all right well,
But yet I love it more
For the fairy scene that lay around
Its home on that lakeless shore:
Beside the bank the stately trees
Waved gently to and fro,
And flitting specks of sunlight fell
The leafy branches thro’,
And danced among the tall keen reeds,
And on the water fell,
Where the merry fish were glancing swift;
And the water snake, as well,
Came, gliding in a graceful curl
All silently and still,
Like a lord in his own dominions there,
Swimming about at will.
Now toward the margin where we stood
We saw him steering on,--
Then under groups of lily leaves
The happy thing was gone.
And wild-fowl, water-rats, and all,
Lived in that little lake;
Oh, what a pleasant picture now
My thoughts of it awake!
Its margent of smooth lawny turf
Was mossy, soft, and deep,
Where the shadows broad of the beech and oak
Seemed quietly to sleep.
The rhododendrons, purple yet
With many a massive wreath,
Had seedling plants, a countless host,
Crowding the turf beneath.
I dearly love small relics brought
From spots where I have been,
That seem to certify the facts
Of memory’s pictured scene;
But seeds and roots of flowers are
The pleasantest of all;--
I’ve Broom-seeds from a heathy glen,
And ferns from an old stone wall.
Of wall-flower slips and roots I’ve got
So many, that I’m fain,
Dear as they are to me, to turn
Many adrift again.
My ivy-plant from Tintern’s braved
Four winters’ stormy weather;
I’ve scraps, too, from proud Kenilworth,
And here they grow together.
The feathery seeds of clematis
In Goodrich I have caught;
Hartstongue from Ragland’s lofty keep,
With maiden-hair, I brought.
And so at Claremont, where the crowd
Of rhododendrons grew,
My whims were humoured, and I now
Am rearing one or two.
And e’en those little things can bring
Before me, passing well,
The very nook where the scented leaves
Of the graceful calamus dwell.
_Louisa A. Twamley._
BROOM.... _Humility_.
Thomas Miller thus speaks of the “bonny Broom,” in his Romance of
Nature:--
Beautiful art thou, O 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 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.
* * * * *
Humility, that low, sweet root,
From which all heavenly virtues shoot.
_Moore._
* * * * *
Oh the Broom, the bonny bonny Broom,
The Broom of the Cowden-knowes;
For sure so soft, so sweet a bloom,
Elsewhere there never grows.
_Scottish Song._
* * * * *
Here is a precious jewel I have found
Among the filth and rubbish of the world.
I’ll stoop for it, but when I wear it here,
Set on my forehead like the morning-star,
The world may wonder, but it will not laugh.
_Longfellow._
* * * * *
Their groves of sweet myrtle, let foreign lands reckon,
Where bright beaming summers exalt the perfume;
Far dearer to me yon lone glen o’ green breckan,
Wi’ the burn stealing under the lang yellow Broom.
_Burns._
* * * * *
But the publican stood afar off in his grief,
For he felt like a beggar who needed relief;
And he raised not his eyes, and he saw not the scorn
Which the lip of the Pharisee proudly had worn.
But he smote on his bosom, and deeply he sighed;
As a sinner, for mercy, sweet mercy, he cried.
It was all he could utter, but GOD hears a sigh,
And listens, no matter how feeble the cry.
Both unheard and unblest, the proud Pharisee then
Returned to the pomp of his riches again;
While the publican sinner, though loathed and oppressed,
Went joyfully homeward with peace in his breast.
_MacKellar._
ST. JOHN’S WORT.... _Superstition_.
This plant is an appropriate emblem of superstition; for it has always
been regarded with reverence by the peasantry of Europe, on account of
its real and supposed virtues. It was supposed to possess the power of
defending persons from phantoms and spectres, and driving away all evil
spirits. Its large, yellow flower grows close to the earth, and
resembles a small wheel of fireworks.
* * * * *
’Tis a history