Th' amomum there[064] with intermingling flowers
And cherries hangs her twigs. Geranium boasts
Her crimson honors, and the spangled beau
Ficoides, glitters bright the winter long
All plants, of every leaf, that can endure
The winter's frown, if screened from his shrewd bite,
Live their and prosper. Those Ausonia claims,
Levantine regions those, the Azores send
Their jessamine, her jessamine remote
Caffraia, foreigners from many lands,
They form one social shade as if convened
By magic summons of the Orphean lyre
Here is a bunch of flowers laid before the public eye by Mr. Proctor--
There the rose unveils
Her breast 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 snowdrop,
Born of the breath of winter, and on his brow
Fixed like a full 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 vines, and scented thorns,
And some from whom the voluptuous winds of June
Catch their perfumings
Barry Cornwall
I take a second supply of flowers from the same hand
Here, this rose
(This one half blown) shall be my Maia's portion,
For that like it her blush is beautiful
And this deep violet, almost as blue
As Pallas' eye, or thine, Lycemnia,
I'll give to thee for like thyself it wears
Its sweetness, never obtruding. For this lily
Where can it hang but it Cyane's breast?
And yet twill wither on so white a bed,
If flowers have sense of envy.--It shall be
Amongst thy raven tresses, Cytheris,
Like one star on the bosom of the night
The cowslip and the yellow primrose,--they
Are gone, my sad Leontia, to their graves,
And April hath wept o'er them, and the voice
Of March hath sung, even before their deaths
The dirge of those young children of the year
But here is hearts ease for your woes. And now,
The honey suckle flower I give to thee,
And love it for my sake, my own Cyane
It hangs upon the stem it loves, as thou
Hast clung to me, through every joy and sorrow,
It flourishes with its guardian growth, as thou dost,
And if the woodman's axe should droop the tree,
The woodbine too must perish.
Barry Cornwall
Let me add to the above heap of floral beauty a basket of flowers from Leigh Hunt.
Then the flowers on all their beds--
How the sparklers glance their heads,
Daisies with their pinky lashes
And the marigolds broad flashes,
Hyacinth with sapphire bell
Curling backward, and the swell
Of the rose, full lipped and warm,
Bound about whose riper form
Her slender virgin train are seen
In their close fit caps of green,
Lilacs then, and daffodillies,
And the nice leaved lesser lilies
Shading, like detected light,
Their little green-tipt lamps of white;
Blissful poppy, odorous pea,
With its wing up lightsomely;
Balsam with his shaft of amber,
Mignionette for lady's chamber,
And genteel geranium,
With a leaf for all that come;
And the tulip tricked out finest,
And the pink of smell divinest;
And as proud as all of them
Bound in one, the garden's gem
Hearts-ease, like a gallant bold
In his cloth of purple and gold.