Flowers And Flower-Gardens Part 16

In her ecstacy of grief she prophecies that henceforth all sorts of sorrows shall be attendants upon love,--and alas! she was too correct an oracle.

The course of true love never does run smooth.

Here is Shakespeare's version of the metamorphosis of Adonis into a flower.

By this the boy that by her side lay killed Was melted into vapour from her sight, And in his blood that on the ground lay spilled, A purple flower sprang up, checquered with white, Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.

She bows her head, the new sprung flower to smell, Comparing it to her Adonis' breath, And says, within her bosom it shall dwell Since he himself is reft from her by death; She crops the stalk, and in the branch appears Green dropping sap which she compares to tears.

The reader may like to contrast this account of the change from human into floral beauty with the version of the same story in Ovid as translated by Eusden.

Then on the blood sweet nectar she bestows, The scented blood in little bubbles rose; Little as rainy drops, which fluttering fly, Borne by the winds, along a lowering sky, Short time ensued, till where the blood was shed, A flower began to rear its purple head

Such, as on Punic apples is revealed Or in the filmy rind but half concealed, Still here the fate of lonely forms we see, _So sudden fades the sweet Anemone_.

The feeble stems to stormy blasts a prey Their sickly beauties droop, and pine away The winds forbid the flowers to flourish long Which owe to winds their names in Grecian song.

The concluding couplet alludes to the Grecian name of the flower ([Greek: anemos], _anemos_, the wind.)

It is said of the Anemone that it never opens its lips until Zephyr kisses them. Sir William Jones alludes to its short-lived beauty.

Youth, like a thin anemone, displays His silken leaf, and in a morn decays.

Horace Smith speaks of

The coy anemone that ne'er discloses Her lips until they're blown on by the wind

Plants open out their leaves to breathe the air just as eagerly as they throw down their roots to suck up the moisture of the earth. Dr. Linley, indeed says, "they feed more by their leaves than their roots." I lately met with a curious ill.u.s.tration of the fact that plants draw a larger proportion of their nourishment from light and air than is commonly supposed. I had a beautiful convolvulus growing upon a trellis work in an upper verandah with a south-western aspect. The root of the plant was in pots. The convolvulus growing too luxuriantly and encroaching too much upon the s.p.a.ce devoted to a creeper of another kind, I separated its upper branches from the root and left them to die. The leaves began to fade the second day and most of them were quite dead the third or fourth day, but two or three of the smallest retained a sickly life for some days more. The buds or rather chalices outlived the leaves. The chalices continued to expand every morning, for--I am afraid to say how long a time--it might seem perfectly incredible. The convolvulus is a plant of a rather delicate character and I was perfectly astonished at its tenacity of life in this case. I should mention that this happened in the rainy season and that the upper part of the creeper was partially protected from the sun.

The Anemone seems to have been a great favorite with Mrs. Hemans. She thus addresses it.

Flower! The laurel still may shed Brightness round the victor's head, And the rose in beauty's hair Still its festal glory wear; And the willow-leaves droop o'er Brows which love sustains no more But by living rays refined, Thou the trembler of the wind, Thou, the spiritual flower Sentient of each breeze and shower,[067]

Thou, rejoicing in the skies And transpierced with all their dyes; Breathing-vase with light o'erflowing, Gem-like to thy centre flowing, Thou the Poet's type shall be Flower of soul, Anemone!

The common anemone was known to the ancients but the finest kind was introduced into France from the East Indies, by Monsieur Bachelier, an eminent Florist. He seems to have been a person of a truly selfish disposition, for he refused to share the possession of his floral treasure with any of his countrymen. For ten years the new anemone from the East was to be seen no where in Europe but in Monsieur Bachelier's parterre. At last a counsellor of the French Parliament disgusted with the florist's selfishness, artfully contrived when visiting the garden to drop his robe upon the flower in such a manner as to sweep off some of the seeds. The servant, who was in his master's secret, caught up the robe and carried it away. The trick succeeded; and the counsellor shared the spoils with all his friends through whose agency the plant was multiplied in all parts of Europe.

THE OLIVE.

The OLIVE is generally regarded as an emblem of peace, and should have none but pleasant a.s.sociations connected with it, but Ovid alludes to a wild species of this tree into which a rude and licentious fellow was converted as a punishment for "banishing the fair," with indecent words and gestures. The poet tells us of a secluded grotto surrounded by trembling reeds once frequented by the wood-nymphs of the sylvan race:--

Till Appulus with a dishonest air And gross behaviour, banished thence the fair.

The bold buffoon, whene'er they tread the green, Their motion mimics, but with jest obscene; Loose language oft he utters; but ere long A bark in filmy net-work binds his tongue; Thus changed, a base wild olive he remains; The shrub the coa.r.s.eness of the clown retains.

_Garth's Ovid_.

The mural of this is excellent. The sentiment reminds me of the Earl of Roscommon's well-known couplet in his _Essay on Translated Verse_, a poem now rarely read.

Immodest words admit of no defense,[068]

For want of decency is want of sense,

THE HYACINTH.

The HYACINTH has always been a great favorite with the poets, ancient and modern. Homer mentions the Hyacinth as forming a portion of the materials of the couch of Jove and Juno.

Thick new-born Violets a soft carpet spread, And cl.u.s.tering Lotos swelled the rising bed, And sudden _Hyacinths_[069] the turf bestrow, And flaming Crocus made the mountains glow

_Iliad, Book 14_

Milton gives a similar couch to Adam and Eve.

Flowers were the couch Pansies, and Violets, and Asphodel And _Hyacinth_, earth's freshest, softest lap

With the exception of the lotus (so common in Hindustan,) all these flowers, thus celebrated by the greatest of Grecian poets, and represented as fit luxuries for the G.o.ds, are at the command of the poorest peasant in England. The common Hyacinth is known to the unlearned as the Harebell, so called from the bell shape of its flowers and from its growing so abundantly in thickets frequented by hares.

Shakespeare, as we have seen, calls it the _Blue_-bell.

The curling flowers of the Hyacinth, have suggested to our poets the idea of cl.u.s.ters of curling tresses of hair.

His fair large front and eye sublime declared Absolute rule, and hyacinthine locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung, Cl.u.s.tering

_Milton_

The youths whose locks divinely spreading Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue

_Collins_

Sir William Jones describes--

The fragrant hyacinths of Azza's hair, That wanton with the laughing summer air.

A similar allusion may also be found in prose.

"It was the exquisitely fair queen Helen, whose jacinth[070] hair, curled by nature, intercurled by art, like a brook through golden sands, had a rope of fair pearl, which, now hidden by the hair, did, as it were play at fast and loose each with the other, mutually giving and receiving richness."--_Sir Philip Sidney_

"The ringlets so elegantly disposed round the fair countenances of these fair Chiotes [071] are such as Milton describes by 'hyacinthine locks'

crisped and curled like the blossoms of that flower"

_Dallaway_

The old fable about Hyacinthus is soon told. Apollo loved the youth and not only instructed him in literature and the arts, but shared in his pastimes. The divine teacher was one day playing with his pupil at quoits. Some say that Zephyr (Ovid says it was Boreas) jealous of the G.o.d's influence over young Hyacinthus, wafted the ponderous iron ring from its right course and caused it to pitch upon the poor boy's head.

He fell to the ground a bleeding corpse. Apollo bade the scarlet hyacinth spring from the blood and impressed upon its leaves the words _Ai Ai_, (_alas! alas!_) the Greek funeral lamentation. Milton alludes to the flower in _Lycidas_,

Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.

Drummond had before spoken of

That sweet flower that bears In sanguine spots the tenor of our woes

Hurdis speaks of: