FLORA, POMONA, VERTUMNUS, THE SEASONS.
Flora was unknown among the Greeks, having her birth with the Romans. She was the Goddess of Flowers,
————————————————"which unveil
Their breasts of beauty, and each delicate bud
O' the Season, comes in turn to bloom and perish.
But first of all the Violet, with an eye
Blue as the midnight heavens, the frail snow-drop,
Born of the breath of winter, and on his brow,
Fixed like a pale and solitary star,
The languid hyacinth, and wild primrose,
And daisy, trodden down like modesty,
The fox-glove, in whose drooping-bells the bee
Makes her sweet music: the Narcissus, named
From him who died for love, the tangled woodbine
Lilacs and flowering limes, and scented thorns,
And some from whom the voluptuous winds of June
Catch their perfumery."
Barry Cornwall.
She married Zephyrus, and received from him the privilege of presiding over flowers, and enjoying perpetual youth.
Pomona was the Goddess of Fruits and Fruit Trees, and supposed to be the Deity of Gardens.
"Her name Pomona, from her woodland race,
In garden culture none could her excel,
Or form the pliant souls of plants so well;
Or to the fruit more generous flavours lend,
Or teach the trees with nobler loads to bend."
Pleased with her office, and unwilling to take upon herself the troubles of marriage, she vowed perpetual celibacy. Numerous were the suitors who attempted to win her from her rash determination, but to all of them the answer was alike in the negative: tho' Vertumnus, one of the most zealous, pursued her with unchanging ardour.
"Long had she laboured to continue free
From chains of love and nuptial tyranny;
And in her orchard's small extent immured,
Her vow'd virginity she still secured.
Oft would loose Pan, and all the lustful train
Of satyrs, tempt her innocence in vain.
Vertumnus too pursued the maid no less,
But with his rivals, shared a like success."
Ovid.
Miserable, but not cast down, by the many refusals he met with, Vertumnus took a thousand shapes to influence the success of his suit.
"To gain access, a thousand ways he tries
Oft in the hind, the lover would disguise,
The heedless lout comes shambling on, and seems
Just sweating from the labour of his teams.
Then from the harvest, oft the mimic swain
Seems bending with a load of bearded grain.
Sometimes a dresser of the vine he feigns,
And lawless tendrils to their boughs restrains.
Sometimes his sword a soldier shews; his rod
An angler; still so various is the God.
Now, in a forehead cloth some crone he seems,
A staff supplying the defect of limbs:
Admittance thus he gains; admires the store
Of fairest fruit; the fair possessor more;
Then greets her with a kiss; th' unpractised dame
Admired, a grandame kissed with such a flame.
Now seated by her, he beholds a vine,
Around an elm in amorous foldings twine,
"If that fair elm," he cried, "alone should stand,
No grapes would glow with gold, and tempt the hand;
Or if that vine without her elm should grow,
'Twould creep a poor neglected shrub below.
Be then, fair nymph, by these examples led,
Nor shun for fancied fears, the nuptial bed."
Ovid.
In this disguise, Vertumnus recommended himself and his virtues to Pomona.
"On my assurance well you may repose,
Vertumnus scarce Vertumnus better knows,
True to his choice all looser flames he flies,
Nor for new faces fashionably dies.
The charms of youth, and every smiling grace,
Bloom in his features, and the god confess."
Ovid.
The pertinacious wooing of the metamorphosed deity, had, at last its effect, in preparing Pomona for Vertumnus, when he should assume his natural shape.
"The story oft Vertumnus urged in vain,
But then assumed his heavenly form again;
Such looks and lustre the bright youth adorn,
As when with rays glad Phœbus paints the morn.
The sight so warms the fair admiring maid,
Like snow she melts, so soon can youth persuade;
Consent on eager wings succeeds desire,
And both the lovers glow with mutual fire."
Ovid.
Pomona had a temple at Rome, and a regular priest, who offered sacrifices to her divinity for the preservation of fruit: she is generally represented sitting on a basket, full of flowers and fruit, holding a bough in one hand, and apples in the other.
Vertumnus is represented under the figure of a young man, crowned with various plants, bearing in his left hand fruits, and in his right a horn of abundance.
The Goddess Pomona is often confounded with Autumn, Ceres with Summer, and Flora with Spring.
The four seasons have also been described with great distinctness, by poets, both ancient and modern, all of whom were delighted to pour forth tributes of praise in their honour; Spring is usually drawn as a nymph, with her head crowned by a wreath of flowers; and many are the strains attributed to her.
"I come, I come! ye have called me long,
I come o'er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.
I have breathed in the south, and the chesnut flowers,
By thousands have burst from the forest bowers,
And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes,
Are veiled with wreaths on Italian plains:
But it is not for me in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb.
I have looked o'er the hills of the stormy north,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth,
The fisher is out in the stormy sea,
And the rein-deer bounds o'er the pastures free,
And the fence has a fringe of softer green,
And the moss looks bright where my foot hath been.
I have sent thro' the wood-paths a glowing sigh,
And called out each voice of the deep blue sky;
From the night bird's lay thro' the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan's wild note by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-branch into verdure breaks.
From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain,
They are sweeping on to the silvery main,
They are flashing down from the mountain brows,
They are flinging spray o'er the forest boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves!
Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come!
Where the violets lie may be now your home.
Ye of the rose-lip and dew-bright eye,
And the bounding footstep to meet me fly!
With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay,
Come forth to the sunshine, I may not stay.
Away from the dwellings of care-worn men,
The waters are sparkling in grove and glen!
Away from the chamber and sullen hearth,
The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth!
Their light stems thrill to the wild wood strains.
And youth is abroad in my green domains.
But ye! ye are changed since ye met me last!
There is something bright from your features past!
There is something come over brow and eye,
Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die!
Ye smile!—but your smile hath a dimness yet—
Oh! what have ye looked on since last we met?
Ye are changed, ye are changed! and I see not here
All whom I saw in the vanished year!
There were graceful heads with their ringlets bright,
Which tossed in the breeze with a play of light,
There were eyes, in whose glistening laughter lay
No faint remembrance of dull decay!
There were steps that flew o'er the cowslip's head,
As if for a banquet all earth were spread;
There were voices that rung thro' the sapphire sky,
And had not a sound of mortality!
Are they gone? is their mirth from the mountains passed?
Ye have looked on death since ye met me last!
I know whence the shadow comes o'er you now,
Ye have strewn the dust on the sunny brow!
Ye have given the lovely to earth's embrace,
She hath taken the fairest of beauty's race,
With their laughing eyes and their festal crown,
They are gone from amongst you in silence down!
The Summer is coming, on soft winds borne,
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn!
For me I depart to a brighter shore,
Ye are marked by care, ye are mine no more,
I go where the loved, who have left you, dwell,
And the flowers are not death's—farewell, farewell!"
Hemans.
Summer is drawn naked, bearing an ear of corn, just arriving at its fulness, to denote the harvest yielded by its light and heat; with a scythe in her hand, to intimate that it is the season of harvest.
A welcome to the summer's pleasant song,
A welcome to the summer's golden hour,
A welcome to the myriad joys that throng,
With a deep loveliness, o'er tree and flower,
The earth is glad with beauty, the sky
Smiles in calm grandeur over vale and hill,
And the breeze murmurs forth a gentle sigh,
And the fish leap from out the smiling rill.
The town's pale denizens come forth to breathe.
The free, fresh air, and lave their fevered brows;
And beauty loves young fairy flowers to wreathe
Beneath some stately forest's antique boughs.
Oh! art hath nought like this, the very air
Breatheth of beauty, banishing despair."
Francis.
At other times, she is represented surrounded by the flowers which blossom latest, mingled with the delicious fruits which are the offspring of the summer season.
"Come away! the sunny hours
Woo thee far to founts and bowers!
O'er the very waters now,
In their play,
Flowers are shedding beauty's glow—
Come away!
Where the lily's tender gleam
Quivers on the glancing stream—
Come away!
All the air is filled with sound,
Soft, and sultry, and profound;
Murmurs through the shadowy grass
Lightly stray;
Faint winds whisper as they pass—
Come away;
Where the bee's deep music swells
From the trembling fox-glove bells—
Come away!
In the skies the sapphire blue
Now hath won its richest hue;
In the woods the breath of song
Night and day
Floats with leafy scents along—
Where the boughs with dewy gloom
Come away!
Darken each thick bed of bloom
Come away!
In the deep heart of the rose
Now the crimson love-hue glows;
Now the glow-worm's lamp by night
Sheds a ray,
Dreamy, starry, freely bright—
Come away!
Where the fairy cup-moss lies,
With the wild-wood strawberries,
Come away!
Now each tree by summer crowned,
Sheds its own night twilight round;
Glancing there from sun to shade,
Bright wings play;
Here the deer its couch hath made—
Come away!
Where the smooth leaves of the lime
Glisten in the honey time,
Come away—away!
Hemans.
Autumn appears clad in a robe red with the juice of the vintage, which he yields to gladden the heart of man: while a dog is placed at his feet to denote it as the season of the chase.
"I saw old Autumn in the misty morn,
Stand shadowless like silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;
Shaking his tangled locks all dewy bright
With spangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.
Where are the songs of summer? with the sun,
Opening the dusky eyelids of the south,
Till shade and silence waken up alone,
And morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
Where are the merry birds? Away, away
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
Lest owls should prey
Undazzled at noon-day,
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.
Where are the blooms of Summer? in the west,
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,
When the mild eve by sudden night is prest
Like tearful Proserpine, snatched from her flowers
To a most gloomy breast.
Where is the pride of Summer,—the green prime—
The many, many leaves all twinkling?—There
On the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime
Trembling,—and one upon the old oak tree!
Where is the Dryad's immortality?
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
Or wearing the long, gloomy winter through
In the smooth holly's green eternity.
The squirrel gloats on his accomplished hoard,
The Ants have trimm'd their garners with ripe grain,
And honey bees have stored
The sweets of summer in their luscious cells;
The swallows all have winged across the main;
But here the Autumn melancholy dwells,
And sighs her tearful spells,
Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.
Alone, alone,
Upon a mossy stone,
She sits and reckons up the dead and gone,
With the last leaves for a love-rosary,
Whilst all the withered world looks drearily,
Like a dim picture of the drowned past
In the hushed mind's mysterious far away,
Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last
Into that distance, grey upon the grey.
O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded
Under the languid downfall of her hair;
She wears a coronal of flowers faded,
Upon her forehead, and a face of care;—
There is enough of withered every where
To make her bower,—and enough of gloom;
There is enough of sadness to invite,
If only for the rose that died—whose doom
Is beauty's,—she that with the living bloom
Of conscious cheeks, most beautifies the light;
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,
Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl,
Enough of fear and shadowy despair,
To frame her cloudy prison for the soul."
Hood.
Winter, as the oldest season, is drawn with shrivelled limbs, and white and hoary locks, to represent the appearance of old age.
"When first the fiery mantled sun
His heavenly race began to run;
Round the earth, in ocean blue
His children four the Seasons flew;—
First, in the green apparel dancing,
The young Spring smiled with angel grace;
Rosy Summer next advancing,
Rushed into her sire's embrace:—
Her bright haired sire, who bade her keep
For ever nearest to his smiles,
On Calpe's olive shaded steep,
On India's citron covered isles:
Now remote and buxom brown,
The queen of vintage bowed before his throne;
A rich pomegranate gemmed her crown,
A ripe sheaf bound her zone.
But howling Winter fled afar,
To hills that prop the polar star,
And loves on deer-borne car to ride
With barren Darkness by his side,
Round the shore where loud Lofoden
Whirls to death the roaring whale,
Round the hall where Runic Oden
Howls his war song to the gale;
Save when a-down the ravaged globe
He travels on his native storm,
Deflowering Nature's grassy robe,
And trampling on her faded form:
Till light's returning lord assume
The shaft that drives him to his polar field,
Of power to pierce his raven plume,
And chrystal covered shield.
Oh, sire of storms, whose savage ear
The Lapland drum delights to hear,
When frenzy with her bloodshot eye
Implores thy dreadful deity,
Archangel! power of desolation!
Fast descending as thou art,
Say, hath mortal invocation
Spells to touch thy stony heart?
Then, sullen Winter, hear my prayer,
And gently rule the ruined year;
Nor chill the wanderer's bosom bare,
Nor freeze the wretch's falling tear.
To shuddering want's unmantled bed,
Thy horror-breathing agues cease to lead,
And gently on the orphan head
Of innocence descend.
But chiefly spare, O King of clouds,
The sailor on his airy shrouds;
When wrecks and beacons strew the steep,
And spectres walk along the deep.
Milder yet thy snowy breezes
Pour on yonder tented shores,
Where the Rhine's broad billow freezes,
Or the dark brown Danube roars.
Oh, winds of Winter! list ye there
To many a deep and dying groan;
Or start, ye demons of the midnight air,
At shrieks and thunders louder than your own.
Alas! e'en your unhallowed breath,
May spare the victim fallen low;
But man will ask no truce to death,
No bounds to human woe."
Campbell.