152 BIRDS AND MAN 



Ask me no more where Jove bestows 

 When June is past, the fading rose, 

 For in your beauty's orient deep 

 These flowers as in their causes sleep. 



But all reds have something human, even the 

 most luminous scarlets and crimsons — ^the scarlet 

 verbena, the poppy, our garden geraniums, etc. — 

 although in intensity they so greatly surpass 

 the brightest colour of the lips and the most 

 vivid blush on the cheek. Luminous reds are 

 not, however, confined to lips and cheeks : even 

 the fingers when held up before the eyes to 

 the sun or to firelight show a very delicate and 

 beautiful red ; and this same brUliant floral hue 

 is seen at times in the membrane of the ear. It 

 is, in fact, the colour of blood, and that bright 

 fluid, which is the life, and is often spilt, comes 

 very much into the human associations of flowers. 

 The Persian poet, whose name is best left un- 

 written, since from hearing it too often most 

 persons are now sick and tired of it, has said, 



I sometimes think that never blooms so red 

 The rose as where some buried Caesar bled. 



There is many and many a " plant of the blood 



