560 
THE FLOWEU GARDEN OE THE POETS. 
corning. lie was well aware of their several 
natures and virtues, and was not ignorant of 
the order in which they appear through the 
several months. We could mention those 
poets who, carried away by enthusiasm, or 
lost in ignorance, fling together a profusion of 
figures and thoughts, heaping up strange 
flowers in company, and ci-eating impossible 
combinations in order to produce a glittering 
picture. But Milton does not thus err. He 
places each flower in its proper season and 
situation. From 
" The cowslip's velvet head, 
That bends not as I tread," 
to where, in the regions of eternal summer, 
" The west winds with musky wing 
About the cedarn alleys fling 
Nard and Cassia's balmy smells ; 
Iris there, with humid bow, 
Waters the odorous banks that blow ; 
Flowers of more mingled hue 
Than her purpled scarf can show ;" 
all are correctly spoken of, and distinguished 
by appropriate epithets. On the river bank, 
in the wood, on the turfy lawn, in the open 
mead, and in the 
" Hazel copse^ green," 
we find flowers flourishing in all their various 
beauty. Of whatever he may be speaking, 
from that 
" When first the' white-thorn blows," 
to the month when all the fields and gardens 
are gay with blossoms, he continually revels 
in those glowing descriptions which constitute 
so great a part of the beauty of his poems. 
But perhaps the passage in which Milton's 
love of the flower garden appears to the 
greatest advantage, is that which occurs in 
I/ycidas. We here perceive his great acquaint- 
ance with the volume of nature, his minute 
observance of trifles, with which he forms a 
succession of the richest ideas. 
" Eeturn, Sicilian muse, 
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 
Their bells and flow'rets of a thousand hues ; 
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers rise 
Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks. 
On whose fresh laps the swart star sparely looks. 
Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes, 
That on the green turf suck the honey'd showers. 
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers ; 
Bring the rash primrose that forsaken dies, 
The tufted crow too, and pale jessamine, 
The white pink and the pansy peaked with jet. 
The glowing violet, 
The musk rose and the well attired woodbine. 
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head. 
And every flower that good embroidery wears ; 
Bid Amarantus all his beauty shed, 
And daffbdilies fill their cup with tears, ' 
To strow the laureate verse where Lycid lies." 
Nothing can be more exquisite than this 
fragment. As we read, we call up the flowers 
before us, and by the time we arrive at the 
close, there lies stretcbed out before our mind's 
eye a scene so lively, so brilliant, that the 
imagination fails to receive all the bright im- 
pressions created. From these verses, hun- 
dreds of others have been coined by writers 
whose thoughts were so imbued with the rich 
magnificence of Milton's poesy, that they have 
often, perhaps unconsciously, fancied they 
were forming ideas of their own, while they 
in reality wrote nothing but a mass of verse, 
whose brilliancy was borrowed, and almost 
lost in the cloud of weak and dull imagery. 
We shall not pause to wander with Milton 
over the 
" Meadows trim with daisies pied ;" 
nor shall we stay to hear the story of 
Hyacinth transformed by Apollo into a purple 
flower. One more extract we must, however, 
make. It is of unequalled beauty, and forms 
the first of four lines of a sonnet on May 
morning : — 
" Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger, 
Comes dancmg from the east, and leads with her 
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws 
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose." 
Shakspeare next claims our attention. Our 
choice has been accidental ; we draw no com- 
parison between the two poets, for there is no 
analogy between them. We immediately per- 
ceive the different cast of thought which per- 
vades their poetry : — 
" And I serve the Fairy Queen, 
To dew her orb upon the green. 
The cowslips tall her pensioners be. 
In their gold-coats spots you see ; 
These be rubies, fairy favours. 
In those freckles live their savours ; 
I must go seek some dew-drops here and there. 
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear." 
Whether the savours of the cowslip pro- 
ceed from the spots in their gold coats, we 
do not think has been determined by botanists. 
The mention of the fact, however, by Shak- 
speare, proves his minute observation, and we 
conjecture that he must have been told, or 
have read of the fact, somewhere. This, how- 
ever, though curious, is perhaps not important, 
and we leave the discussion of it to others, 
and hurry on to the delicious description of 
Titania's forest couch :-^ 
" I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows. 
Where ox-lip and the nodding violet grows. 
Quite over canopied with luscious woodbine. 
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." 
The Queen of Fairies retiring to rest, gives 
her orders to the attendant train before lying 
down to sleep : — 
" Hence ! 
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds." 
For she wished to preserve the beauty of those 
