353 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



legend attached to all the old-time flowers. It was poetic Greece that 

 gave a human interest to them, and attached a legend of man's weal or 

 woe, or triumph to every blossom. 



They seem so much like the human race, each one with its little 

 biography. I wonder il the modern Narcissi know the fate of their 

 ancestor, "who gazed on his eyes in the stream's recess, till he died of his 

 own dear, loveliness," and lived again in the form of a bright blooming 

 daffodilly. He was like the dude of to-day, ^nly, I suppose, he was 

 really beautiful. We all wonder and are sad that beneath the rose such 

 cruel briars are hidden. 



Now I will tell how it fell that the rose was set with thorns, 



" She was briarless at first. 



So the quaint old legend telleth ; 



Little children came, and men, 



And the happy maiden loved it. 



So the rose tree angered when some feet trod and some hands tore, 



Buds and blossoms that she wore; ^ 



Then she put forth thorns around her, 



One by one, 'till she had thrown prickly armour 'round her beauty. 



But she grew faint making moan for the feet that used to trod, 



She was "lonely," so I read, 



" There's no rose without a thorn," 



But it seems to me a heart might be kept without them. 



Sweet as rose without a thorn. 



Is the heart that ne'er hath torn 



Hand of love that came to prove it ; 



Oh may we be in the world's great thronging garden, 



Like the blossom-laden tree, 



Ere she set sharp thorns, so ; 



Growing faint from self-made woe." 



Then we have beautiful flower language. This comes to us from 

 the east, though the Turkish and Arabic does not much resemble ours. 

 ,It is formed not by an idea or sentiment originating in itself, but by its 

 capacity to rhyme with another word — i. e., the word with which the 

 flower rhymes becomes its signification We give to each blossom that 

 meaning which it seems to express in itself. Some are very beautiful. 

 There is the Jasmine flower, its emblem is " Love in adversity." They 

 keep their odour to themselves all day, but when night comes 



Let the delicous secret out 



To every breeze that flits about ; 



