STORY OF THE SUNFLOWER 271 To bind them all about with tiny rings. Linger awhile upon some bending planks That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks, And watch intently Nature's gentle doings: They will be found softer than ringdove's cooings. How silent comes the water round that bend! Not the minutest whisper does it send To the o'erhanging sallows: blades of grass Slowly across the chequer'd shadows pass. THE STORY OF THE SUNFLOWER ANONYMOUS CLYTIE was a beautiful water-nymph in love with Apollo. But, alas! he did not love her. So she pined away, sitting all day on the cold, hard ground, with her unbound tresses streaming over her shoulders. Nine days she sat and tasted neither food nor drink, her own tears and the chilly dew her only food. She gazed on the sun when he rose, and as he passed through his daily course to his setting, she saw no other object, her face turned constantly to him. At last, they say, her limbs rooted to the ground, her face became a sunflower, which turns on its stem so as always to face the sun throughout its daily course; for it retains to that extent the feeling of the nymph from whom it sprang. FLOWERS BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE O PROSERPINA, For the flowers now, that frighted, thou let'st fall That come before the swallow dares, and take The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack, A PITCHER OF MIGNONETTE BY HENRY CUYLER BUNNER A PITCHER of mignonette In a tenement's highest casement Queer sort of flower-pot-yet That pitcher of mignonette Is a garden in heaven set, To the little sick child in the basement The pitcher of mignonette, In the tenement's highest casement. WILD FLOWERS 273 WILD FLOWERS BY RICHARD JEFFERIES From The Open Air A FIR tree is not a flower, and yet it is associated in my mind with primroses. There was a narrow lane leading into a wood, where I used to go almost every day in the early months of the year, and at one corner it was overlooked by three spruce firs. The rugged lane there began to ascend the hill, and I paused a moment to look back. Immediately the high fir trees guided the eye upwards, and from their tops to the deep azure of the March sky over, but a step from the tree to the heavens. So it has ever been to me, by day or by night, summer or winter; beneath trees the heart feels nearer to that depth of life the far sky means. The rest of spirit found only in beauty, ideal and pure, comes there because the distance seems within touch of thought. To the heaven thought can reach lifted by the strong arms of the oak, carried up by the ascent of the flameshaped fir. Round the spruce top the blue was deepened, concentrated by the fixed point, the memory of that spot, as it were, of the sky is still freshI can see it distinctly still beautiful and full of meaning. It is painted in bright color in my mind, color thrice laid, and indelible; as one passes a shrine and bows the head to the Madonna, so I recall the picture and stoop in spirit to the aspiration it yet arouses. For there is no saint like the sky, sunlight shining from its face. Before I had any conscious thought it was a delight to me to find wild flowers, just to see them. It was a pleasure to gather them and to take them home; a pleasure to show them to others - to keep them as long as they would live, to decorate the room with them, to arrange them carelessly with grasses, green sprays, tree-bloom-large branches of chestnut snapped off, and set by a picture perhaps. Without conscious thought of seasons and the advancing hours to light on the white wild violet, the meadow orchis, the blue veronica, the blue meadow cranesbill; feeling the warmth and delight of the increasing sun-rays, but not recognizing whence or why it was joy. All the world is young to a boy, and thought has not entered into it; even the old men with gray hair do not seem old; different but not aged, the idea of age has not been mastered. A boy has to frown and study, and then does not grasp what long years mean. The various hues of the petals pleased without any knowledge of colorcontrasts, no note even of color except that it was bright, and the mind was made happy without consideration of those ideals and hopes afterwards associated with the azure sky above the fir trees. A fresh footpath, a fresh flower, a fresh delight. WILD FLOWERS 275 The reeds, the grasses, the rushes-unknown and new things at every step-something always to find; no barren spot anywhere, or sameness. Every day the grass painted anew, and its green seen for the first time; not the old green, but a novel hue and spectacle, like the first view of the sea. If we had never before looked upon the earth, but suddenly came to it man or woman grown, set down in the midst of a summer mead, would it not seem to us a radiant vision? The hues, the shapes, the song and life of birds, above all the sunlight, the breath of heaven, resting on it; the mind would be filled with its glory, unable to grasp it, hardly believing that such things could be mere matter and no more. Like a dream of some spirit-land it would appear, scarce fit to be touched lest it should fall to pieces, too beautiful to be long watched lest it should fade away. So it seemed to me as a boy, sweet and new like this each morning; and even now, after the years that have passed, and the lines they have worn in the forehead, the summer mead shines as bright and fresh as when my foot first touched the grass. It has another meaning now; the sunshine and the flowers speak differently, for a heart that has once known sorrow reads behind the page, and sees sadness in joy. But the freshness is still there, the dew washes the colors before dawn. Unconscious happiness in finding wild flowers - unconscious and unquestioning, and therefore unbounded. |