The language of flowers The floral offering ; a token of affection and esteem ; comprising the language and poetry of flowers
To meet their dad, wi’ flichtering noise and glee;
His wee-bit ingle blinkin bonilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie’s smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a’ his weary kiaugh and care beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.
_Burns._
* * * * *
How warmly we are loved, we seldom learn
Till pain and sorrow take our strength away;
Then hearts too long estranged, to us will turn,
And be at peace, as in a former day.
Our true and loving wife more loving grows;
Our little ones in pitying wonder stand
Beside the bed and clasp our fevered hand;
Their glistening eye the tear of feeling shows;
And it may be, when evening calls to rest,
They sadly kneel beside their mother’s chair,
Their silvery voices blend in simple prayer,
And for their sire they make a child’s request.
The times of anguish vainly are not given.
That lead a family to unity and heaven.
_MacKellar._
* * * * *
Poor madam now condemned to hack
The rest of life with anxious Jack,
Perceiving others fairly flown,
Attempted pleasing him alone.
Jack soon was dazzled to behold
Her present face surpass the old:
With modesty her cheeks are dyed,
Humility displaces pride;
For tawdry finery is seen
A person ever neatly clean;
No more presuming on her sway,
She learns good nature every day;
Serenely gay, and strict in duty,
Jack finds his wife a perfect beauty.
_Goldsmith._
* * * * *
Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train,
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art:
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway;
Lightly they frolic o’er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain:
And e’en while fashion’s brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy?
_Goldsmith._
* * * * *
The first sure symptoms of a mind in health,
Is rest of heart, and pleasure felt at home.
_Young._
* * * * *
Nor need we power or splendour,--
Wide hall or lordly dome;
The good, the true, the tender,--
These form the wealth of home.
_Mrs. Hale._
* * * * *
His warm but simple home, where he enjoys
With her who shares his pleasure and his heart,
Sweet converse.
_Cowper._
* * * * *
Home is the sphere of harmony and peace,
The spot where angels find a resting-place,
When, bearing blessings, they descend to earth.
_Mrs. Hale._
* * * * *
Home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace, and plenty, where,
Supporting and supported, polished friends
And dear relations mingle into bliss.
_Thomson._
* * * * *
An angel always dwells beneath the roof
Where, in her virtue, a sweet wife fulfils
Her gentle duties; and unnumbered ills
From that love-guarded precinct keep aloof.
_MacKellar._
LICHEN.... _Solitude_.
How use doth breed a habit in a man!
The shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:
There can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And to the nightingale’s complaining notes
Tune my distresses, and record my woes.
_Shakspeare._
* * * * *
Full many a dreary hour have I past,
My brain bewildered, and my mind o’ercast
With heaviness; in seasons when I’ve thought
No sphery strains by me could e’er be caught
From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze
On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays;
Or, on the wavy grass outstretched supinely,
Pry ’mong the stars, to strive to think divinely:
That I should never hear Apollo’s song,
Though feathery clouds were floating all along
The purple west, and, two bright streaks between,
The golden lyre itself were dimly seen:
That the still murmur of the honey-bee
Would never teach a rural song to me:
That the bright glance from beauty’s eyelids slanting
Would never make a lay of mine enchanting,
Or warm my breast with ardour to unfold
Some tale of love and arms in time of old.
_Keats._
* * * * *
No din
Invades the temple of their mind;--the mirth
And sighs of men are sounds to them unknown,
Though well they know the spirit’s inward groan;
And mortal agonies belong to them
As well as to their fellow men; for death
Hath passed on all who draw the vital breath,
And where sin is, there doth the law condemn.
Ah, hapless men! relentless Silence keeps
Her watchpost at the portals of the ear;
No heavenly word or sound approacheth near
And music’s melting influence in lasting stillness sleeps.
_MacKellar._
* * * * *
There was a poet whose untimely tomb
No human hands with pious reverence reared,
But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds
Built o’er his mouldering bones a pyramid
Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness;
A lovely youth!--no mourning maiden decked
With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,
The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:
Gentle and brave, and generous, no lorn bard
Breathed o’er his dark fate one melodious sigh:
He lived, he died, he sang, in solitude.
Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,
And virgins, as unknown he past, have sighed
And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.
The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,
And Silence, too, enamoured of that voice,
Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.
_Shelley._
* * * * *
How blest the Solitary’s lot,
Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot,
Within his humble cell,
The cavern wild with tangling roots,
Sits o’er his newly-gathered fruits,
Beside his crystal well!
Or, haply, to his evening thought,
By unfrequented stream,
The ways of men are distant brought,
A faint collected dream:
While praising, and raising
His thoughts to heaven on high,
As wand’ring, meand’ring,
He views the solemn sky.
Than I, no lonely hermit placed
Where never human footstep traced,
Less fit to play the part;
The lucky moment to improve,
And just to stop, and just to move,
With self-respecting art:
But ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys
Which I too keenly taste,
The Solitary can despise,
Can want, and yet be blest!
He needs not, he heeds not,
Or human love or hate,
Whilst I here must cry here,
At perfidy ingrate!
_Burns._
DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.
Heaped in the hollow of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbit’s tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day.
Where are the flowers, the young fair flowers, that lately sprang and stood,
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lonely beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie: but the cold November rain
Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again.
The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the wild-rose and the orchis died, amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.
And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the streams no more.
And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side:
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.
_Bryant._
Dictionary of Flowers,
WITH THEIR EMBLEMATIC SIGNIFICATIONS.
Acacia Friendship.
---- Rose Elegance.
Acanthus The Arts.
Achillea millefolia War.
Adonis, Flos Painful Recollections.
Agrimony Thankfulness.
Almond-tree Indiscretion.
Aloe Grief.
Amaranth Immortality.
Amaryllis Pride.
Anemone Forsaken.
----, Field Sickness.
Angelica Inspiration.
Angrec Royalty.
Apple blossom Preference.
Ash tree Grandeur.
Asphodel My Regrets follow you to the Grave.
Aster, China Variety.
---- After-thought.
Balm of Gilead Cure.
---- Gentle Joking.
Balsam Impatience.
Barberry Sourness of temper.
Basil Hate.
Beech Prosperity.
Bilberry Treachery.
Bladder-nut Frivolous amusement.
Borage Bluntness.
Box tree Stoicism.
Bramble Envy.
Broom Humility.
---- Ardour.
Buck-bean Calm repose.
Bugloss Falsehood.
Bulrush Indiscretion.
Burdock Touch me not.
Buttercup Ingratitude.
Cactus, Virginia Horror.
Canterbury Bell Constancy.
Catchfly Snare.
Champignon Suspicion.
Cherry tree Good education.
Chestnut tree Do me justice.
Chicory Frugality.
Cinquefoil Beloved daughter.
Circæa Spell.
Clematis Artifice.
Clot-bur Rudeness.
Clove tree Dignity.
Columbine Folly.
Convolvulus, Night Night.
Coriander Hidden merit.
Corn Riches.
Cornbottle Delicacy.
Cornel Cherry tree Durability.
Cowslip, American You are my divinity.
Cress Resolution.