A Handful of Weeds 355 



crowns of it at the burial of Achilles. Wreaths of 

 it are still worn, and are hung over doors and win- 

 dows by Swiss peasants on Ascension Day. Milton 

 speaks of 



" Immortal amaranth, a flower which once 

 In Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life, 

 Began to bloom ; but soon for man's offence, 

 To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows 

 And flowers aloft shading the Fount of Life." 



And his angels are 



"Crowned with amaranth and gold." 



From being the flower of immortality, amaranth 

 became, by a natural association of ideas, the flower 

 of death. In a beautiful poem by Longfellow, 

 " The Two Angels," it crowns the brows of Azrael, 

 the Death Angel, while the Angel of Life wears a 

 wreath of asphodels or daffodils, the flowers of life. 

 Because perhaps death is as strong as love, ama- 

 ranth is an antidote for the love-philtre. Yet who 

 would expect to find the flower hymned of many 

 poets on the coarse crouching weed which invades 

 the bean-patch, or disfigures the gravel-paths once 

 our pride? 



When the signal-service was still far in the un- 

 known future country people used to forecast the 

 weather by the doings of some common and familiar 

 plants, which are now superseded by modern science 



