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
association 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 Shelley'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 passages in which flowers are used
otherwise than as an illustration or an emblem. There are, indeed,
Titania'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 Titania'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 passing 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 associated 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 hearse" 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 Tasso or
Boccaccio. The west winds fling around the cedared alleys sweet smells
of Nard and Cassia, 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 surpassed 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 Shelley 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 casement
edge,--the "wild marsh-marygold" which "shines 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 fashion may disappear before the thankless task is
undertaken.