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We have all heard of the ‘‘ Man of the Moon.” 
Violets—The violet was an emblem of early death.—Pericles, 
Pe, b. 
In “ Winter’s Tale ” there is a beautiful allusion to them— 
“O, Proserpina, 
For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou lett’st fall 
From Dis’s waggon ! daffodils 
That come before the swallow dares and take* 
The winds of March with beauty ; violets, dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes, 
Or Cytherea’s breath ; pale primroses 
That die unmarried; ere they can behold 
Bright Pheebus in his strength ; bold oxlips and 
The crown-imperial ; lilies of all kinds, 
The flower-de-luce being one.” 
I must dismiss Burns with a very few words. Everyone has 
admired his poem on the Daisy, his comparison of the pleasures 
of life to the evanescent bloom of poppies, his lone glen o’ green 
brackens, wi’ the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom, the 
rose and the woodbine twining along the banks of Doon, the 
fragrant birk, the hawthorn hoar that mingled together over- 
looking the stream of the Ayr. In the matter of fowers, how- 
ever, he was a poet first and a florist afterwards. He pulls a 
posie for his ain dear May, but it is an ideal posie, impossible in 
nature. He puts into it the primrose and the rose. He places 
the hyacinth beside the hawthorn, entirely regardless of times 
and seasons. At the same time, in his “ Lament of Mary Queen 
of Scots,” there is tender pathos in the references to spring 
flowers she can neither see nor enjoy, although there is again 
inaccuracy in having the slae and the hawthorn blooming 
simultaneously. His fervid allusions to our Scottish heather are 
also dear to our hearts, while his pithy song of ‘“ Green grow the 
rashes” is rooted in our memories. On New Year’s Day, 1789, 
he addressed a letter to Mrs Dunlop. “TI have some favourite 
flowers in spring, among which are the mountain daisy, the hare- 
bell (here he evidently means the blue squill or hyacinth of our 
woods), the fox-glove, the wild brier rose (here he gets mixed, 
putting in summer blooms), the budding birch, and the hoary 
hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight.” In 
all these cases the intensity of emotion created by these beautiful 
objects of nature in the poet’s breast must more than excuse any 
inaccuracy in observation. 
. * Charm. 
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