The language of flowers The floral offering ; a token of affection and esteem ; comprising the language and poetry of flowers
fancifully accounted for:--
* * * * *
The Angel of the Flowers one day,
Beneath a Rose-tree sleeping lay,
That spirit to whose charge is given
To bathe young buds in dews from heaven.
Awaking from his light repose,
The angel whispered to the Rose,
“O fondest object of my care,
Still fairest found where all are fair,
For the sweet shade thou hast given to me,
Ask what thou wilt, ’tis granted thee.”
Then said the Rose, with deepening glow,
“On me another grace bestow.”
The spirit paused in silent thought--
What grace was there that flower had not?
’Twas but a moment--o’er the Rose
A veil of moss the angel throws;
And, robed in nature’s simplest weed,
Could there a flower that Rose exceed?
_Anon._
* * * * *
They gather gems with sunbeams bright,
From floating clouds and falling showers;
They rob Aurora’s locks of light,
To grace their own fair queen of flowers.
Thus, thus adorned, the speaking rose
Becomes a _token_ fit to tell
Of things that words can ne’er disclose,
And naught but this reveal so well.
Then take my flower, and let its leaves
Beside thy heart be cherished near,
While that confiding heart receives
The thought it whispers to thine ear.
_Token, 1830._
WHITE WATER-LILY.... _Purity_.
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
reverence. No flower looks more lovely than this “Lady 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 streams.
_Miller._
* * * * *
Thine is a face to look upon and pray
That a pure spirit keep thee--I would meet
With one so gentle by the streams away,
Living with nature; keeping thy pure feet
For the unfingered moss, and for the grass
Which leaneth where the gentle waters pass.
The autumn leaves should sigh thee to thy sleep;
And the capricious April, coming on,
Awake thee like a flower; and stars should keep
A vigil o’er thee like Endymion;
And thou for very gentleness shouldst weep
As dews of the night’s quietness come down.
_Willis._
* * * * *
Oh, come to the river’s rim, come with us there,
For the White Water-Lily is wondrous fair,
With her large broad leaves on the stream afloat,
Each one a capacious fairy-boat.
The swan among flowers! How stately ride
Her snow-white leaves on the glittering tide!
And the Dragon-fly gallantly stays to sip
A kiss of dew from her goblet’s lip.
_Anon._
* * * * *
The Lily on the water sleeping,
Enwreathed with pearl, and bossed with gold,
An emblem is, my love, of thee:
But when she like a nymph is peeping,
To watch her sister-buds unfold,
White shouldered on the flowery lea,
Gazing about in sweet amazement,
Thy image, from the vine-clad casement,
Seems looking out, my love, on me.
_Miller._
* * * * *
Little streams have flowers a many,
Beautiful and fair as any;
Typha strong, and green bur reed,
Willow herb with cotton seed,
Arrow head with eye of jet,
And the Water-Violet;
There the flowering Rush you meet,
And the plumy meadow sweet,
And in places deep and stilly
Marble-like, the Water-Lily.
_Mrs. Howitt._
MARIGOLD.... _Grief_.
The Marigold is the conventional emblem of distress of mind. It is
distinguished by many singular properties. It blossoms the whole year,
and on that account, the Romans termed it the flower of the calends, or
of all the months. Its flowers are open only from nine in the morning
till three in the afternoon. They always follow the course of the sun,
by turning from east to west as he proceeds upon his daily journey. In
July and August these flowers emit, during the night, small luminous
sparks. Alone, the Marigold expresses grief; interwoven with other
flowers, the varied events of life; the cloud and sunshine of ill and
good.
* * * * *
And see the flaunting Marigold,
Gay from its marshy bed unfold
Mid minor lights its disks that shine
Like suns for brightness.
_Anon._
* * * * *
Open afresh your round of starry folds,
Ye ardent Marigolds!
Dry up the moisture of your golden lids.
_Keats._
* * * * *
When, with a serious musing, I behold
The grateful and obsequious Marigold,
How duly, every morning, she displays
Her open breast when Phœbus spreads his rays;
How she observes him in his daily walk
Still bending towards him her small slender stalk;
How, when he down declines, she droops and mourns,
Bedewed as ’twere with tears till he returns.
_Withers._
* * * * *
I need not say how, one by one,
Love’s flowers have dropped from off love’s chain,
Enough to say that they are gone,
And that they cannot bloom again.
_Miss Landon._
* * * * *
We sometimes see a shadow swiftly skim
In summer o’er the hills and vales of earth:
So transient shades steal o’er the face of mirth,
And frequent tears the brightest eyes bedim.
_MacKellar._
* * * * *
Thine is a grief that wastes the heart,
Like mildew on a tulip’s dyes--
When hope, deferred but to depart,
Loses its smiles but keeps its sighs.
_Miss Landon._
WHITE ROSE.... _I would be single_.
How uneasy is his life
Who is troubled with a wife!
Be she ne’er so fair or comely,
Be she foul or be she homely,
Be she blithe or melancholy,
Have she wit, or have she folly,
Be she prudent, be she squandering,
Be she staid, or be she wandering,
Yet uneasy is his life
Who is married to a wife.
_Cotton._
The White Rose became celebrated in English history as the badge of the
house of York, in the War of the Roses. Among the ancients, who
considered the Rose as the queen of flowers, it was the custom to crown
new-married persons with a chaplet of Red and White Roses; and in the
procession of the Corybantes, the goddess Cybele, the protectress of
cities, was pelted with White Roses.
* * * * *
A single Rose is shedding
Its lovely lustre meek and pale:
It looks as planted by despair--
So white, so faint--the slightest gale
Might whirl the leaves on high.
_Byron._
YELLOW ROSE.... _Jealousy_.
Pfeffel, a German poet, has pleasingly accounted for the origin of the
Yellow Rose, the emblem of envy and jealousy, in the following manner:
Once a White Rose-bud reared her head,
And peevishly to Flora said,
“Look at my sister’s blushing hue--
Pray, mother, let me have it too.”
“Nay, child,” was Flora’s mild reply,
“Be thankful for such gifts as I
Have deemed befitting to dispense--
Thy dower the hue of innocence.”
When did Persuasion’s voice impart
Content and peace to female heart
Where baleful Jealousy bears sway,
And scares each gentler guest away?
The Rose still grumbled and complained,
Her mother’s bounties still disdained.
“Well, then,” said angered Flora--“take”--
She breathed upon her as she spake--
“Henceforth no more in simple vest
Of innocence shalt thou be drest--
Take that which better suits thy mind,
The hue for Jealousy designed!”
The Yellow Rose has from that hour
Borne evidence of Envy’s power.
Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek?--is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip?--stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh?--(a note infallible
Of breaking honesty:)--horsing foot to foot?--
Skulking in corners?--wishing clocks more swift?--
Hours, minutes?--noon, midnight? and all eyes
Blind with the pin and web, but theirs,--theirs only,
That would unseen be wicked?--is this nothing?
Why, then the world, and all that’s in it, is nothing.
_Shakspeare._
* * * * *
Thou wondrous yellow fiend!
Temper an antidote with antimony,
And ’tis infectious: Mix jealousy with marriage,
It poisons virtue.
_Davenport._
* * * * *
O jealousy! thou bane of pleasing friendship,
Thou worst invader of our tender bosoms;
How does thy rancour poison all our softness,
And turn our gentle natures into bitterness!
_Rowe._
* * * * *
Ah! poor unconscious rival maid,
How drearily must thou sicken and fade,
’Neath jealousy’s dark Upas shade!
_Tupper._
RED ROSE.... _Beauty and Love_.
According to ancient fable, the red colour of the Rose may be traced to
Venus, whose delicate foot, when she was hastening to the relief of her
beloved Adonis, was pierced by a thorn that drew blood,
Which on the White Rose being shed,
Made it for ever after red.
_Herrick._
Miller, the “basket-maker” and poet, gives the following beautiful
account of the origin of the Red Rose:--
It was drawing toward 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 rose, pile upon pile, until high over all
towered the god-haunted height of cloud-capt Olympus, rising with
its rounded shoulder, like another world, on the uttermost rim of
the horizon. At the foot of this immense world of untrodden
mountains, opened out a wide, immeasurable forest, stretching far
away, league upon league, with its unexplored ocean of trees, which
were bounded somewhere by another range of unknown mountains, that
again overlooked a vast, silent, and unpeopled 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, and 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, while they were
recounting the deeds of other days, when they waged war against the