And pensive monitor of fleeting years—
received the tribute of much minor verse. Now we principally remember in connection with it that it does not lend itself well to pot culture, and makes no show as a cut flower; hence, seeing its inconspicuousness and the usual state of the weather at the time of blooming, it is of little use as an ornament. And the fact that it either takes so kindly to its surroundings that it becomes almost a weed, or else dislikes them and practically declines to grow at all, is rather against it. But in the days of our grandmothers it was different, then it was essentially the young girl’s flower, and so was graced with all the characteristics which were reckoned to adorn “refined and elegant young females.” Of it, “the Winter’s timid child,” a poetess of those days wrote:—
All weak and wan, with head inclined,
Its parent breast the drifted snow,
It trembles, while the ruthless wind
Bends its slim form; the tempest lowers,
Its emerald eye drops crystal showers
On its cold bed below.
Where’er I find thee, gentle flower,
Thou still art sweet and dear to me!