HARD IVICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



83 



flowers is from the beginning ; it is as evident in the 

 •earhest poems as in the latest ; it is charming every- 

 where. In the early poems — published sixty years 

 iigo— we have the flowers in the uld-fashioned 

 Lincolnshire garden drooping under the action of the 

 autumn frosts. 



Heavily hangs the broad sunflower. 

 Over its grave i' the earth so chilly ; 



Heavily hangs the hollyhock. 

 Heavily hangs the tiger lily. 



Perhaps the very garden in which, after his 

 •departure, 



Unwatched the garden bough shall sway, 

 The tender blossom flutter down, 

 Unloved that beech will gather brown, 



This maple burn itself away : 



Unloved the sunflower, shining fair, 

 Ray round with flame her disk of seed. 

 And many a rose-carnation feed 



With summer spice the humming air. 



And around, or below, where the great Fenland 

 ■swept away to the great sea : 



Far through the marish, green and still. 

 The tangled watercourses slept, 

 Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow, 



and with 



The silvery marish flowers that throng 

 The desolate pools and creeks among. 



And with these we must quote, as characteristic 

 of the scenery among which his earlier years were 

 jjassed, "two of the most beautiful and melancholy 

 lines in our language, " as Henry Kingsley truly calls 

 them : 



When from the dry, dark wold the summer airs blow cool. 

 On the oat-grass, and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in 

 the pool. 



The meadow- and marsh-flowers are chiefly 

 spoken of in the "May Queen " : 



And by the meadow trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo- 

 flowers. 



And the wild marsh marigold shines like fire in swamps and 

 hollows grey. 



What a gleam of first May time those two lines 

 'bring with them ! One can see the water-meadows of 

 our Dorsetshire Stour, or of the Salisbury Avon, 

 winding to and fro from Ringwood to Christchurch, 

 where the wide moist meadows are on fire with marsh 

 marigold. 



In that lovely " Dirge," how he delights to bring 

 together over the quiet grave, "the bramble-roses, 

 faint and pale," "the gold-eyed king-cups fine," 

 "the frail blue bells," "the rare broidry of the 

 purple clover," till, as Shelley said, "making one in 

 love with death to think one should be buried in so 

 ■sweet a place." 



Almost always the wild flowers are spoken of. In 

 -the spring " by ashen roots the violets blow," a line 

 which once guided us to a lovely clump of white 

 •T^-iolets after a fruitless search elsewhere. Following 

 Shakspere, he thinks how, when Arthur Hallam 

 lies at rest in quiet Clevedon, " Of his ashes may be 



made the violet of his native land." So Shakspere, 



of Ophelia, " From her fair and unpolluted flesh may 



violets spring." But both our poets had l)een 



anticipated — 



Non e manibus illis, 

 Non e tumulo, fortuiiataque favUla 

 Nascuntur violae 1 



The orchis, " the foxglove spire with its dappled 

 bells," "the little speedwell's darling blue," "deep 

 tulips dashed with fiery dew," " laburnums, 

 dropping wells of fire," each in turn recalling some 

 pleasant spot, it may be in damp spring copse, or 

 meadow, or by sunny bank, or in sloping garden. 

 The glorious reaches of blue when the hyacinths 

 carpet the ground are specially noted, for we read 

 how Lancelot and Guinevere 



Rode under groves that looked a paradise 



Of blossom, over sheets of hyacinth 



That seemed the heavens upbreaking thro' the earth. 



That is a bit of forest. We saw the verj' place last 

 spring, quite close to Queen's Bower, near Brocken- 

 hurst, where, beneath stately beeches, the ground 

 was covered with blue-bells, as we call them. 



The mention of the delicate wind-flowers softens 

 the rugged speech of the wild "Northern Farmer" 

 as he tells how the keeper was shot dead, and lay on 

 his face " down i' the woild enemies," a wonderfully 

 pathetic touch, as it shows you the dead man with 

 the delicate petals of the flowers whispering round 

 the motionless head. 



Do you want a broad summer landscape, with the 

 scent of summer and the promise of autumn ? Here 

 it is : — 



When summer's hourly mellowing change 

 May breathe with many roses sweet 

 Upon the thousand waves of wheat 



That ripple round the lonely grange. 



Can you not see the " waves of shadow pass over 

 the wheat," and smell the fragrance of the wind that 

 has travelled over the many roses? Surely some one 

 has painted that "grey old grange" amid its far 

 waving corn ! 



The simple happy cottage-flowers, "traveller's 

 joy," "'honeysuckle," rosy sea of gillyflowers, 

 "close-set robe of jasmine," "lily-avenue," and so 

 on, are noted, one by one, in a pretty passage in 

 "Aylmer's Field," describing the houses of Sir 

 Aylmer's tenantry. 



But the most splendid use of the common flowers 

 is in the finest of all his pieces on public events, the 

 " Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington." 



Not once, or twice, in our rough island story. 



The path of duty was the way to glory ; 



He that walks it, only thirsting 



For the right, and learns to deaden 



Love of self, before his journey closes. 



He sJiall find the stuhborii thistle bursting 



Into glossy purples, -which outredde>i 



All voluptuous garden roses. 



The thistle referred to is the lovely purple-headed 

 one that grows on the down-sides, with a more 



