Yellow Turkscap Lily. _Lilium Pomponicum flavum._
Dedicated to _St. Petronilla_.
[Illustration: JUNE.]
And after her came jolly June, array’d
All in green leaves, as he a player were;
Yet in his time he wrought as well as play’d,
That by his plough-irons mote right well appeare.
Upon a crab he rode, that him did bare
With crooked crawling steps an uncouth pase,
And backward-yode, as bargemen wont to fare
Bending their force contrary to their face;
Like that ungracious crew which faines demurest grace.
_Spenser._
This is the sixth month of the year. According to an old author “unto
June the Saxons gave the name of _Weyd-monat_, because their beasts did
then weyd in the meddowes, that is to say, goe to feed there, and hereof
a medow is also in the Tutonicke called a _weyd_, and of _weyd_ we yet
retaine our word _wade_, which we understand of going through watrie
places, such as medowes are wont to be.”[159] Another author likewise
says, that “_weyd_ is probably derived from _weyden_ (German), to go
about as if to pasture;” he further says, they called it _Woedmonath_,
and that _woed_ means “weed”; and that they called it also by the
following names: _Medemonath_, _Midsumormonath_, and _Braeckmonath_;
thought to be so named from the breaking up of the soil from _bræcan_
(Saxon), to break: they also named it _Lida erra_; the word _Lida_, or
_litha_, signifying in Icelandic, “to move, or pass over,” may imply the
sun’s passing its greatest height, and _Lida erra_ consequently mean the
first month of the sun’s descent. _Lida_, it is added, has been deemed
to signify _smooth-air_.[160]
Mr. Leigh Hunt observes, in his “Months,” that “the name of June, and
indeed that of May, gave rise to various etymologies; but the most
probable one derives it from Juno, in honour of whom a festival was
celebrated at the beginning of the month.” He says, “it is now complete
summer:--
‘Summer is ycomen in,
Loud sing cuckoo;
Groweth seed,
And bloweth mead,
And springeth the weed new.’
“Thus sings the oldest English song extant, in a measure which is its
own music.--The temperature of the air, however, is still mild, and in
our climate sometimes too chilly; but when the season is fine, this is,
perhaps, the most delightful month of the year. The hopes of spring are
realized, yet the enjoyment is but commenced: we have all summer before
us; the cuckoo’s two notes are now at what may be called their
ripest,--deep and loud; so is the hum of the bee; little clouds lie in
lumps of silver about the sky, and sometimes fall to complete the growth
of the herbage; yet we may now lie down on the grass, or the flowering
banks, to read or write; the grasshoppers click about us in the warming
verdure; and the fields and hedges are in full blossom with the clover,
the still more exquisite bean, the pea, the blue and yellow nightshade,
the fox-glove, the mallow, white briony, wild honeysuckle, and the
flower of the hip or wild rose, which blushes through all the gradations
of delicate red and white. The leaves of the hip, especially the young
ones, are as beautiful as those of any garden rose. Towards evening, the
bat and the owl venture forth, flitting through the glimmering quiet;
and at night, the moon looks silveriest, the sky at once darkest and
clearest; and when the nightingale, as well as the other birds have done
singing, you may hear the undried brooks of the spring running and
panting through their leafy channels. ‘It ceased,’ says the poet,
speaking of a sound of heavenly voices about a ship,--
It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook,
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
_Coleridge._
“There is a greater accession of flowers in this month than in any
other. In addition to those of the last, the garden sparkles with
marygolds, golden-road, larkspur, sun-flowers, amarynths, (which Milton
intermingles with sun-beams for his angel’s hair,) lupins, carnations,
Chinese pinks, holyhocks, ladies’ slipper, annual stocks, campanulas, or
little bells, martagons, periwinkles, wall-flower, snap-dragon, orchis,
nasturtium, apocynum, chrysanthemum, cornflower, gladiolus, and
convolvulus. The reader who is fond of poetry, and of the Greek fables,
and does not happen to be acquainted with professor Martyn’s notes upon
Virgil, should here be informed, that the species of red lily, called
the martagon or Turk’s-cap, has been proved by that writer, at least to
our satisfaction, to be the real ancient hyacinth, into which the youth
of that name was turned by Apollo. The hyacinth, commonly so called, has
nothing to show for its being the ancient one, which should be of a
blood colour, and was said to be inscribed with the Greek exclamation of
sorrow AI, AI. Now, we were struck with the sort of literal black marks
with which the Turk’s-cap is speckled, and on reading the professor’s
notes, and turning to the flower again, we could plainly see, that with
some allowance, quite pardonable in a superstition, the marks might now
and then fall together, so as to indicate those characters. It is a most
beautiful, glowing flower; and shoots gracefully forth in a vase or
glass from among white lilies, and the double narcissus:--
Νυν υακινθε, λαλει τα σα γσαμματα, και πλεον Αι Αι
Λαμβανε σοις πεταλοισι.
_Moschus._
‘Now tell your story, Hyacinth; and show
Ai Ai the more amidst your sanguine woe.’
“The rural business of this month is made up of two employments, as
beautiful to look at as they are useful,--sheep-shearing and hay-making.
Something like a holiday is still made of the former, and in the
south-west of England, the custom, we believe, is still kept up, of
throwing flowers into the streams, an evident relic of paganism; but,
altogether, the holiday is but a gleam of the same merry period in the
cheap and rural time of our ancestors.”
[159] Verstegan.
[160] Dr. F. Sayers.
~June 1.~
_St Justin_, Martyr, A. D. 167. _St. Pamphilus_, A. D. 309. _St.
Caprais_, Abbot, A. D. 430. _St. Peter_, of Pisa, A. D. 1435. _St.
Wistan_, Prince of Mercia, A. D. 849.
_St. Nicomede._
This saint is in the English almanacs of this day; for what reason is
unknown. He was an ancient martyr in no way distinguished from others
who perished during the persecution under Domitian.