But, among those of March, April, May, June, July, remember the glad and
festive names, the springtime syllables, the vocables of azure and dawn,
of moonlight and sunshine! Here is the Snowdrop, or Amaryllis, who
proclaims the thaw; the Stitchwort, or Lady's Collar, who greets the
first-communicants along the hedges, whose leaves are as yet
indeterminate and uncertain, like a diaphanous green lye. Here are the
sad Columbine and the Field Sage, the Jasione, the Angelica, the Field
Fennel, the Wallflower, dressed like a servant of a village-priest; the
Osmond, who is a king fern; the Luzula, the Parmelia, the Venus'
Looking-glass; the Esula or Wood Spurge, mysterious and full of sombre
fire; the Physalidis, whose fruit ripens in a lantern; the Henbane, the
Belladonna, the Digitalis, poisonous queens, veiled Cleopatras of the
untilled places and the cool woods. And then, again, the Camomile, the
good-capped Sister with a thousand smiles, bringing the health-giving
brew in an earthenware bowl; the Pimpernel and the Coronilla, the pale
Mint and the pink Thyme, the Sainfoin and the Euphrasy, the Ox-eye
Daisy, the mauve Gentian and the blue Verbena, the Anthemis, the
lance-shaped Horse-Thistle, the Cinquefoil or Potentilla, the Dyer's
Weed ... to tell their names is to recite a poem of grace and light. We
have reserved for them the most charming, the purest, the clearest
sounds and all the musical gladness of the language. One would think
that they were the persons of a play, dancers and choristers of an
immense fairy-scene, more beautiful, more startling and more
supernatural than the scenes that unfold themselves on Prospero's
Island, at the Court of Theseus, or in the Forest of Arden. And the
comely actresses of this silent, never-ending comedy--goddesses, angels,
she-devils, princesses and witches, virgins and courtezans, queens and
shepherd-girls--carry in the folds of their names the magic sheens of
innumerous dawns, of innumerous springtimes contemplated by forgotten
men, even as they also carry the memory of thousands of deep or fleeting
emotions which were felt before them by generations that have
disappeared, leaving no other trace.