A Primrose snowstorm settles down,
And makes each street an amber way.
Here are tall baskets that o’erbrim
With posies bound for one day’s whim.
Here are shrill voices that would drown
All singing, crying their gold wares;
And many buy, if no one cares
How lonesome are the country places
Deserted by these Primrose faces.”
Thus it has been for more than twenty years on April the 19th, and whether the pretty flower was really loved best by its hero as a salad or as an ornament does not matter. The Primrose, so plentiful, so popular, as a memory-flower is perfect, none the less so because Shakespeare has pervaded it with a touch of sadness.