The Chevisaunce
Shall watch with the fayre Fleur de Luce.”
And you may call it Phœbus’-paramour, or Herb-Trinity, or Three Faces-under-a-Hood.
To our forefathers the fields, lanes, and gardens were a newspaper far more valuable than the modern sheet in which we read news of no importance day by day. To them the blossoming of the Sloe meant the time for sowing barley; the bursting of Alder buds that eels had left their winter holes and might be caught. The Wood Sorrel and the cuckoo came together; when Wild Wallflower is out bees are on the wing, and linnets have learnt their spring songs. Water Plantain is supposed to cure a mad dog, and is a remedy against the poison of a rattlesnake; ointment of Cowslips removes sunburn and freckles; the Self-heal is good against cuts, and so is called also, Carpenter’s Herb, Hook-heal, and Sicklewort. Yellow Water-lilies will drive cockroaches and crickets from a house. Most charming intelligence of all deals with the Wild Canterbury Bell, in which the little wild bees go to sleep, loving their silky comfort. These are but a few paragraphs from our news-sheet, but they serve to show how pleasant a paper it is to know—and it costs nothing but a pair of loving and careful eyes.
If we choose to be more fanciful—and who is not, in a wild garden with a dish of Wild Strawberries?—we shall find ourselves filling Acorn cups with dew to drink to the fairies, and wondering how the thigh of a honey-bee might taste. Herrick is the poet for such flights of thought. His songs—“To Daisies, not to shut so soon.” “To Primroses filled with Morning Dew,” and, for this instance, to
THE BAG OF THE BEE
About the sweet bag of a bee
Two Cupids fell at odds;
And whose the pretty prize should be
They vowed to ask the Gods.