Brave old flowers! Wall-flowers, Gillyflowers, Stocks! For, even as the
field-flowers, from which a trifle, a ray of beauty, a drop of perfume,
divides them, they have charming names, the softest in the language; and
each of them, like tiny, artless ex-votos, or like medals bestowed by
the gratitude of men, proudly bears three or four. You Stocks, who sing
among the ruined walls and cover with light the grieving stones; you
Garden Primroses, Primulas or Cowslips, Hyacinths, Crocuses, Crown
Imperials, Scented Violets, Lilies of the Valley, Forget-me-nots,
Daisies and Periwinkles, Poet’s Narcissuses, Pheasant’s-Eyes,
Bear’s-Ears, Alyssums, Saxifrage, Anemones--it is through you that the
months that come before the leaf-time--February, March, April--translate
into smiles which men can understand the first news and the first
mysterious kisses of the sun! You are frail and chilly and yet as
bold-faced as a bright idea. You make young the grass; you are fresh as
the water that flows in the azure cups which the dawn distributes over
the greedy buds, ephemeral as the dreams of a child, almost wide still
and almost spontaneous, yet already marked by the too precocious
brilliancy, the too flaming nimbus, the too pensive grace, that
overwhelm the flowers which yield obedience to man.