--The sages
Who have left streaks of light athwart their pages--
have contemplated flowers--with a passionate love, an ardent admiration;
none more so than the sweet-souled Shakespeare. They are regarded by the
imaginative as the fairies of the vegetable world--the physical
personifications of etherial beauty. In _The Winter's Tale_ our great
dramatic bard has some delightful floral allusions that cannot be too
often quoted.
Here's flowers for you,
Hot lavender, mint, savory, majoram,
The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping these are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age.
* * * * *
O, Proserpina,
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou lett'st fall
From Dis's waggon! Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty, violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath, pale primroses,
That die unmarried ere they can behold
Great Phoebus in his strength,--a malady
Most incident to maids, bold oxlips and
The crown imperial, lilies of all kinds,
The flower de luce being one
Shakespeare here, as elsewhere, speaks of "_pale_ primroses." The poets
almost always allude to the primrose as a _pale_ and interesting
invalid. Milton tells us of