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 Wall-flower, dressed like a servant of a village-priest; the
Osmond, who is a king fern; the Luzula,
[Illustration]
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.