NOTES. 123 



It is, of course, impossible to speak of all the poets 

 who have written about flowers, for probably the list 

 would include them all ; but the five I have mentioned 

 are perhaps the most characteristic, though there are 

 memorable lines in Chaucer, Spenser. Burns, and Keats, 

 and more especially in Wordsworth. 



From Byron there is singularly little to quote ; but no 

 English poet has given so perfect a description of a 

 garden as has Shelley in " The Sensitive Plant." How 

 delicately he paints each flower, and how he makes us 

 see them all, as we tread with him 



" The sinuous paths of lawn and of moss 

 Which led through the garden along and across ; 

 Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, 

 Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees." 



Of living English poets perhaps Mr. Tennyson alone 

 shows any real love for flowers. And this love is scarcely 

 shown so much in the well-known song in " Maud " as 

 by little touches here and there the " long green box of 

 mignonette " which the miller's daughter has set on her 

 casement edge, the "wild marsh-marygold " which 

 " shines like fire in swamps " for the happy May Queen, 

 or the water-lilies which blossom round the island of 

 Shalott. And who can forget the stanza in " In Memo- 

 riam"? 



" Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, 

 The little speedwell's darling blue, 

 Deep tulips dasht with fiery dew, 

 Laburnums, dropping- wells of fire. " 



Of American poets, Mr. Longfellow has, rather 

 strangely, written nothing very memorable about flowers ; 



