CHAPTER IX 



GARDENS OF THE POETS 



"The chief use of flowers is to illustrate quotations from the 

 poets." 



LL English poets have ever been 

 ready to sing English flowers 

 until jesters have laughed, and 

 to sing garden flowers as well as 

 wild flowers. Few have really 

 described a garden, though the 

 orderly distribution of flowers 

 might be held to be akin to 

 the restraint of rhyme and rhythm in poetry. 



It has been the affectionate tribute and happy 

 diversion of those who love both poetry and flowers 

 to note the flowers beloved of various poets, and 

 gather them together, either in a book or a gar- 

 den. The pages of Milton cannot be forced, even 

 by his most ardent admirers, to indicate any inti- 

 mate knowledge of flowers. He certainly makes 

 some very elegant classical allusions to flowers and 

 fruits, and some amusingly vague ones as well. 

 " The Flowers of Spenser," and " A Posy from 

 Chaucer," are the titles of most readable chapters 

 in A Garden of Simples , but the allusions and 

 quotations from both authors are pleasing and 

 215 



