There are some kinds of primroses, that are not _pale_. There is a
species in Scotland, which is of a deep purple. And even in England (in
some of the northern counties) there is a primrose, the bird's-eye
primrose, (Primula farinosa,) of which the blossom is lilac colored and
the leaves musk-scented.
In Sweden they call the Primrose _The key of May_.
The primrose is always a great favorite with imaginative and sensitive
observers, but there are too many people who look upon the beautiful
with a utilitarian eye, or like Wordsworth's Peter Bell regard it with
perfect indifference.
A primrose by the river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him.
And it was nothing more.
I have already given one anecdote of a utilitarian; but I may as well
give two more anecdotes of a similar character. Mrs. Wordsworth was in a
grove, listening to the cooing of the stock-doves, and associating their
music with the remembrance of her husband's verses to a stock-dove, when
a farmer's wife passing by exclaimed, "Oh, I do like stock-doves!" The
woman won the heart of the poet's wife at once; but she did not long
retain it. "Some people," continued the speaker, "like 'em in a pie; for
my part I think there's nothing like 'em stewed in inions." This was a
rustic utilitarian. Here is an instance of a very different sort of
utilitarianism--the utilitarianism of men who lead a gay town life. Sir
W.H. listened, patiently for some time to a poetical-minded friend who
was rapturously expatiating upon the delicious perfume of a bed of
violets; "Oh yes," said Sir W. at last, "its all very well, but for my
part I very much prefer the smell of a flambeau at the theatre." But
intellects far more capacious than that of Sir W.H. have exhibited the
same indifference to the beautiful in nature. Locke and Jeremy Bentham
and even Sir Isaac Newton despised all poetry. And yet God never meant
man to be insensible to the beautiful or the poetical. "Poetry, like
truth," says Ebenezer Elliot, "is a common flower: God has sown it over
the earth, like the daisies sprinkled with tears or glowing in the sun,
even as he places the crocus and the March frosts together and
beautifully mingles life and death." If the finer and more spiritual
faculties of men were as well cultivated or exercised as are their
colder and coarser faculties there would be fewer utilitarians. But the
highest part of our nature is too much neglected in all our systems of
education. Of the beauty and fragrance of flowers all earthly creatures
except man are apparently meant to be unconscious. The cattle tread down
or masticate the fairest flowers without a single "compunctious visiting
of nature." This excites no surprize. It is no more than natural. But it
is truly painful and humiliating to see any human being as insensible as
the beasts of the field to that poetry of the world which God seems to
have addressed exclusively to the heart and soul of man.
In South Wales the custom of strewing all kinds of flowers over the
graves of departed friends, is preserved to the present day.
Shakespeare, it appears, knew something of the customs of that part of
his native country and puts the following _flowery_ speech into the
mouth of the young Prince, Arviragus, who was educated there.
With fairest flowers,
While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale Primrose, nor
The azured Harebell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of Eglantine; whom not to slander,
Out-sweetened not thy breath.
_Cymbeline_.
Here are two more flower-passages from Shakespeare.
Here's a few flowers; but about midnight more;
The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night
Are strewings fitt'st for graves.--Upon their faces:--
You were as flowers; now withered; even so
These herblets shall, which we upon you strow.
_Cymbeline_.
Sweets to the sweet. Farewell!
I hoped thou shoulds't have been my Hamlet's wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,
And not t' have strewed thy grave.
_Hamlet_.
Flowers are peculiarly suitable ornaments for the grave, for as Evelyn
truly says, "they are just emblems of the life of man, which has been
compared in Holy Scripture to those fading creatures, whose roots being
buried in dishonor rise again in glory."[061]
This thought is natural and just. It is indeed a most impressive sight,
a most instructive pleasure, to behold some "bright consummate flower"
rise up like a radiant exhalation or a beautiful vision--like good from
evil--with such stainless purity and such dainty loveliness, from the
hot-bed of corruption.
Milton turns his acquaintance with flowers to divine account in his
Lycidas.
Return; Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.
Ye vallies low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks;
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honied showers.
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies.
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,[062]
And every flower that sad embroidery wears;
Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies,
For, so to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts dally with faint surmise