A Year in a Lancashire Garden Part 8

but this surely cannot be the flower of Clytie; the blossom is quite insignificant ("flore minimo") and _white_. Then there are two Crotons (Tinctorium and Villosum) which are also locally called Heliotropium, and which grow in Crete and Lemnos ("ex qua paratur Tournesol"), but their flowers again are hardly more noticeable and are _yellow_.

Foiled at every point, I thought I would at least see what in _England_ was the traditionary Sunflower, but I am hardly any wiser.

Gerarde says that Valerius Cordius calls the dwarf Cistus Helianthemum, and Solis flos or Sunne-flower. He quotes Pliny as calling it also "Heliocalliden, or the Beautie of the Sunne;" and adds, "which if it be the Sunneflower, yet there is another of the same name, but which may be taken for the right it is hard to tell (but that experience teacheth us), seeing Plinie is so breefe."

Gerarde has also a chapter on the "Tornesole," and says, "there be five sorts of Tornesole, differing one from another in many notable points, as in greatnesse and smallnesse, in colour of flowers, in forme and shape," and then he describes the varieties of "Tornesoles" or "Heliotropium."

He says, "the Graecians call it Heliotropium;"--"it is named Heliotropium, not because it is turned about at the daily motion of the sunne, but by reason it flowreth in the summer solstice, at which time the sunne being farthest gone from the equinoctiale circle, returneth to the same;" but he adds that the French and Italians call it "Turnesol,"

and says, "it is also called Herba c.l.i.tiae, whereof the poet hath these verses,

"'Herba velut c.l.i.tiae semper pet.i.t obvia solem, Sic pia mens Christum, quo prece spectet, habet.'"

Cowley's Sunflower is called in a foot-note Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, but is probably a form of Helianthus. The flower is supposed to speak, and claims to be a _child_ of the Sun, for,

"My orb-like aspect bound with rays The very picture of his face displays;

and again,

"I still adore my sire with prostrate face, Turn where he turns, and all his motions trace."

So after all I am as much in the dark as ever. Was the mysterious flower, as some suggest, a Calendula (Marygold), or an Aster? I cannot tell, and only know that neither answers the description. On the whole then I am disposed to wonder whether either Ovid or Pliny knew much more about the matter than ourselves, and I may some day come to doubt whether Clytie was ever turned into a Sunflower at all.[13]

[13] One of our very best living authorities on such a subject has sent me the suggestion that the common Salsafy, or possibly the Anagallis, may be the flower, but he adds (agreeing with Gerarde), "the word Heliotropium does not mean a flower which turns to the sun, but which flowers at the solstice."

NOTE V.

FLOWERS AND THE POETS.

Both the flowers of the garden and what Campbell calls "wildings of nature" have had their bards, and in the case of certain flowers the a.s.sociation with a poet is so strong that the sight of the flower will recall the verse. Of course this is chiefly so as regards the less familiar flowers. No one, not even Sappho, has an exclusive possession in the Rose; but who would care to dispute Sh.e.l.ley's right to the Sensitive Plant, or Wordsworth's to the lesser Celandine? The poets, however, have sometimes more of a love than a knowledge of plants, and Milton talks of the "twisted Eglantine" in confusion between the Sweetbrier and the Honeysuckle.

It is interesting to see the different ways in which flowers are treated by the poets. Shakspeare, no doubt, loved them in his way, but after all, there are but few pa.s.sages in which flowers are used otherwise than as an ill.u.s.tration or an emblem. There are, indeed, t.i.tania's flowered bank, and Perdita's garden,--redolent of herbs and gay with Violets, Primroses, and Daffodils, but where no Gillyflower was allowed to grow,--and poor Ophelia's melancholy blossoms, and the song in _Love's Labour's Lost_, and that is nearly all. Shakspeare often speaks of Roses, but almost always, excepting in the scene at the Temple Gardens, by way of compliment or comparison. The _musk_-rose, indeed, appears in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_, and this Rose, which is now quite unknown to most of us, was evidently a favourite in Elizabethan gardens, for Bacon says of it that, next the white double Violet (which is also almost lost), the musk-rose "yeelds the sweetest smell in the aire."

But Shakspeare's favourite flowers seem to have been the Primrose, the Violet, the Pansy, and, above all, the Cowslip. He must often have recalled his boyish walks in spring along the Avon, and remembered how the low-lying fields of Stratford were all sweet and yellow with the Cowslip. And so it is within a Cowslip's bell that Ariel hides, and Cowslips are t.i.tania's pensioners on whose ears the fairies must hang pearls, and when the fields of France are desolated the "freckled Cowslip" does not grow there any more, and the mole on Imogen's breast is "like the crimson drops i' the bottom of a Cowslip."

Before pa.s.sing from Shakspeare, I should like to call the attention of the directors or managers of New Place to the absurdity of the garden, which they are supposed to keep up in remembrance of Shakspeare. I chanced to visit it a summer or two ago, and, instead of finding an Elizabethan garden with flowers a.s.sociated with Shakspeare and his times, I saw little but a wretched ribbon border of starveling Calceolarias, scrubby Pelargoniums, and miserable Perillas. Such a garden is a mockery, and would be more suggestive and more pathetic if left wild to the growths of nature.

If Milton enjoyed more completely the luxury of gardens, it is safe to say that he knew less of separate flowers than Shakspeare. He not only speaks of the Eglantine as "twisted," but he calls the Cowslip "wan,"

the Violet "glowing," and the Reed "balmy." He makes Roses and Crocuses bloom together in Paradise, and Hyacinths and Roses in the gardens of Hesperus, while Lycid's "laureate hea.r.s.e" is to be strewn with Primrose and Woodbine, Daffodil and Jessamine. Paradise and the gardens of Hesperus are, of course, ideal gardens, which may be superior to our times and seasons, but the same excuse cannot hold good for the flowers of the "Lycidas," and it is tolerably clear that Milton's special knowledge was somewhat vague. But, on the other hand, what a sensuous pleasure he has in gardens! He is not thinking of Elizabethan gardens, but such gardens as he may have seen in Italy, or read of in Ta.s.so or Boccaccio. The west winds fling around the cedared alleys sweet smells of Nard and Ca.s.sia, or the covert is of inwoven shade of Laurel and Myrtle fenced by Acanthus and odorous shrubs. The rich rhythm of his lines seems to breathe perfume and delight.

And the reason why, in later years at least, the scent rather than the sight of flowers was dear to Milton, is known to all of us, for has he not himself told us how,

"Not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, Or _sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose_?"

He could still drink in the perfumed air of gardens, though only memory could recall the form and colour of those flowers, which he would never see again.[14]

[14] I remember how years ago I was struck with a beautiful little poem about a blind man, written by Mr. James Payn, the well-known novelist.

The lines are quite worth repeating, and will be new to many:--

"There an old man, far in his wintry time, Sits under his porch, while the roses climb; But the breath of its sweetness is all he knows Of the glory about the fair round rose; The lilies that sway in the brook beneath, So cold and white in the beauty of death, Are to him far less than the rushes tall When the wind is bowing them one and all, Like the voice of nature so soft and kind, That whispers how fair she is to _the blind_."

Only one English poet has surpa.s.sed Milton in his love of gardens. Like Milton he probably knew little of particular flowers, but he revelled in the scent and colour of Roses and of Lilies. It is Andrew Marvell; who, it is to be feared, is far less remembered than he deserves to be.

Marvell's gardens are all of the true English character, and his description of Lord Fairfax's, though somewhat quaint and fanciful, has many touches as natural as they are graceful. That the flowers should stand on parade, like soldiers, through the day, and fold up at night in tents, in which bees remain as sentinels, is a far-fetched conceit enough; but nothing can be better than many of his lines. Was it his own garden at Highgate of which he thought, when he spoke of the garden in which Sylvio's fawn was wont to hide?

"I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness."

Cowley's love of a garden was of quite another kind. He cared about it as a horticulturist, and knew the various plants and their qualities; but he never luxuriated in it like Milton or like Marvell. His elaborate poem is interesting, if only to show the flowers that were cultivated in his day, and it is curious to find the Tomato (or love-apple) grown for beauty and not for use, and the _Canna Indica_, which is hardly common with us even now, mentioned as among the ordinary flowers of his time.

On the whole, however, there are very few lines of Cowley about flowers (we are not speaking of anything else) which are worth quoting or remembering.

Herrick's use of flowers is very different. He loved them, no doubt, and is always talking about them, and making them useful.

"He twists his coronals of fancy Out of all blossoms,"

if I may so misapply a line from Lord Houghton's _Letters of Youth_. He makes moralities out of Daffodils, and compliments from Carnations, and warnings from Rosebuds. Charming as many of his poems about flowers are, it is impossible not to feel that the motive of the poem is not the flower itself, but the Anthea or Sappho or Julia, to whom the flower is to teach a lesson of the power of love or the uncertainty of life.

It is, of course, impossible to speak of all the poets who have written about flowers, for probably the list would include them all; but the five I have mentioned are perhaps the most characteristic, though there are memorable lines in Chaucer, Spenser, Burns, and Keats, and more especially in Wordsworth.

From Byron there is singularly little to quote; but no English poet has given so perfect a description of a garden as has Sh.e.l.ley in "The Sensitive Plant." How delicately he paints each flower, and how he makes us see them all, as we tread with him

"The sinuous paths of lawn and of moss Which led through the garden along and across; Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees."

Of living English poets perhaps Mr. Tennyson alone shows any real love for flowers. And this love is scarcely shown so much in the well-known song in "Maud" as by little touches here and there--the "long green box of mignonette" which the miller's daughter has set on her cas.e.m.e.nt edge,--the "wild marsh-marygold" which "s.h.i.+nes like fire in swamps" for the happy May Queen,--or the water-lilies which blossom round the island of Shalott. And who can forget the stanza in "In Memoriam"?--

"Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, The little speedwell's darling blue, Deep tulips dasht with fiery dew, Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire."

Of American poets, Mr. Longfellow has, rather strangely, written nothing very memorable about flowers; but there are some pretty verses of Mr.

Bryant's, and an occasional good line of Mr. Emerson's, as where he speaks of the Gentian as "blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover."

As we once again look round upon the poets that have sung, it is clear that their favourite flowers have been the Rose and the Daisy,--the one recalling all the delights of the summer garden, the other all the freshness of the open field,--the one loved for its beauty, the other cherished for its constancy.

"The rose has but a summer reign, The daisy never dies;"

says Montgomery, in one of the best known of his poems. Cowslips, Violets, Daffodils, and Pansies are probably the next favourites.

Painters have done more for Lilies than the poets have; and Carnations and the later flowers of the year have never made much place for themselves in the poetry of England. The English garden of to-day still awaits its laureate, and, except where, in Mr. Allingham's "Therania,"

"Vase and plot burn scarlet, gold and azure,"

I scarcely know of a description of modern "bedding-out," and sincerely hope that the present fas.h.i.+on may disappear before the thankless task is undertaken.

LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.