Thy fancied bride, The delicate Snowdrop, keeps Her home with thee; she wakes and sleeps Near thy true side. Will man but hear! A simple flower can tell What beauties in his mind should dwell Through passion's sphere. The brilliant colours and woody growth of the Pyrus Japonica, make it contrast strikingly with the pale and fragile snowdrop, near whose modest bells this superb native of Japan may often be seen, exhibiting the singular appearance I have described in the illustrative lines. The buds and flowers of brightest crimson, with their golden-coloured anthers, come peering out through the snow wreaths, that lie lightly upon their trained stems; and, to a far less fanciful eye than mine, might well seem to have melted their way, dissolving their glittering veil to come blushing again into sunshine. The white and pink varieties of the Pyrus Japonica are also very beautiful, but have not the rich and glowing splendour of my fairy favourite, which, through the months of late Autumn, Winter, and early Spring, when so few of our garden darlings venture to look upon the dreary earth, clothes the supporting wall or trellis with its cheering and vivid beauty, being, in this respect, more worthy our esteem than most of our foreign acquisitions, which generally require the additional warmth and shelter of the stove or conservatory. H The next gem of my floral chaplet is one of classic fame; one of the many fair flowers around which mythological fable has thrown its quaint legendary garb: even its botanical name brings a dream of romance with it-Narcissus Poeticus. Our own merry, dancing daffodil claims kindred with the Narcissi; and who does not love the daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take What a mine of wealth a bank sprinkled thickly with their bright golden crests, and waving leaves, seemed to us in childhood! And if only precious as the memories of such innocent delight, we must love them still. Of modern Bards, however great, I have forbidden myself to speak, but what can be more beautiful, in thought, expression, and melody, than these sweet verses of Robert Herrick's? Faire daffodills, we weep to see You haste away so soon; As yet the early rising sun Has not attained his noon. Stay, stay, Untill the hasting day Has run But to the even song; And, having prayed together, we Will goe with you along. We have short time to stay as you, We have as short a Spring: As quick a growth to meet decay As you, or any thing. We die As your hours doe, and drie Away, Like to the Summer's raine, Or as the pearles of morning's dew, The Narcissus is celebrated by many of our old Poets, to whom the story of the beautiful youth growing enamoured of his own reflected form as he gazed into a fountain, and pining in hopeless love till transformed into the Flower bearing his name, was a most tempting subject for their quaint and fanciful muses. The bending heads of all the Narcissi favour the fable, which is certainly a very graceful one; and we do well to bear such in our memory; for they greatly enhance and refine the enjoyment we receive from Flowers, in thus making mental tablets of their delicate and pencilled leaves. The Narcissus is one of the flowers spoken of by Emilia and her maid, in the beautiful garden scene in "The Two Noble Kinsmen," by Beaumont and Fletcher. Emilia. This garden hath a world of pleasures in't. Servant. 'Tis called Narcissus, Madam. Emilia. That was a fair boy certain, but a fool To love himself; were there not maids enough? Servant. They could not be, to one so fair. Cans't thou not work such flowers in silk, wench? I'll have a gown full of 'em; and of these, Rarely upon a skirt, wench? Servant. Dainty, Madam. The most deeply and entirely poetical allusion to the fate of Narcissus is the following splendid passage by Ben Jonson. The love of Echo, and her half reproachful grief, give a real and touching pathos to what in other hands is a mere fable. Echo. His name revives, and lifts me up from earth- Why did the Gods give thee a heavenly form Oh! hadst thou known the worth of Heaven's rich gift, Thou wouldst have turned it to a truer use, The glance whereof to others had been more, Than to thy famished mind the wide world's store. Shelley, in the exquisite description of flowers in his Poem of the "Sensitive Plant," calls Narcissi, the fairest among them all, Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, The scent of the Narcissus, too, is extremely fragrant, and when adorning our windows in wintry weather, how delightfully does the perfumed air of the snug, fire-enlivened study seem to whisper, or at least breathe, of Summer's sweet children and merry blue sky! Yes, the Narcissus is sweet, but it yields the palm of fragrance to its modest neighbour in the wreath. Who does not know that Violets, dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath, have their humble dwelling-places in our English lanes? Who has not seen them on many a sunny bank, in early Spring, clustering together, the purple and the white, hiding among their broad round leaves, and, timidly unclosing their soft petals, filling the air with the sweetest of all sweet odours ? |