She.The glow-room lights, as day is failing
Dew is falling over the field.
He. The meadow-sweet its scent is exhaling,
Honeysuckles their fragrance yield.
Together. Then why should we be all the day toiling?
Lads and lasses, along with me!
She.There’s Jack o’ Lantern lustily dancing,
In the marsh with flickering flame.
He. And Daddy-long-legs, spinning and prancing,
Moth and midge are doing the same.
Chorus. Then why should we, etc.
S. Baring-Gould.
Where peep the gaping speckled cuckoo-flowers
The meadow-sweet flaunts high its showy wreath
And sweet the quaking grasses hide beneath.
Summer.—Clare.
Shall I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel?
Or quiet sea flower moulded by the sea,
Or simples and growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel.
Ave Atque Vale.—Swinburne.
Pale Iris growing where the streams wind slowly
Round the smooth shoulders of untrodden hills,
White meadow-sweet and yellow daffodils.
Phœcia.—N. Hopper.
Queen of the Meadow and Bridewort are two of this flower’s most appropriate names and a very pretty one is that which Gerarde tells us the Dutch give it, Reinette. The Herbalists do not say much about the “Little Queen,” but what they do say, is in the highest degree complimentary. Gerarde decides: “The leaves and flowers excel all other strong herbes for to deck up houses, to strew in chambers, hall and banquetting houses in the summer time; for the smell thereof makes the heart merrie, delighteth the senses, neither doth it cause headache” as some other sweet smelling herbes do. Parkinson, who says it “has a pretty, sharp sent and taste,” praises it for the same purpose and adds the interesting bit of gossip that “Queen Elizabeth of famous memory, did more desire it than any other sweet herbe to strew her chambers withal. A leafe or two hereof layd in a cup of wine, will give as quick and fine a rellish therto as Burnet will,” he finishes practically. Turner says that women, in the spring-time, “put it into the potages and mooses.” I have known it used medicinally by a Herbalist, and can strongly recommend it as an ingredient for pôt pourri. The scent is so sweet and clinging that it is surprising that meadow-sweet is not oftener in request when dried and scented flowers are wanted. The Icelander says that if taken on St John’s Day and thrown into water, it will help to reveal a thief, for if the culprit be a man, it will sink, if a woman, it will float.