LOVE LIES BLEEDING. 
109 
“ For in the rain or sun, 
Cloaked all in modest gray, 
This garden nun 
Doth stand as though to pray. 
Content, she never heeds 
If flaunting poppy scorns. 
Nor marks that weeds 
Do tear her gown with thorns ; 
She tells her beads. 
And lives her life with joy, 
Her one employ. 
To till some small, sweet needs !”* 
But it was not the rosemary that I intended to speak about, 
it was only that I could not think of the amaranth without also 
thinking of its nearest neighbour, and it was just beyond the 
rosemary bushes that the seemingly self-sown plant yearly waved 
its sombre spikes of flowers. Amarantus caiidatns — I think it 
was partly the poetical ring of the high sounding name that 
first attracted my attention, as well as a certain wonder at the 
luxuriance of the unlovely leafage, and the persistent appearance 
of those drooping trails of flowers. But I remember that when 
its banishment was contemplated, I pleaded warmly that it 
might be allowed to remain. I had grown to be fond of the 
strange plant ; and who would willingly destroy a flower of 
which the poets have always sung ? 
It was indeed, quite impossible to connect any thought of 
immortality with the rapidly-growing, rapidly-fading annual ; 
but at least it was very pleasant to have so lofty a name amongst 
one’s garden friends. And if one could not believe that Milton 
had the botanical Amarantus caiidatns in his mind when he sang — 
“ Immortal amaranth, a flower that once 
In Paradise, first by the ‘ Tree of Life,’ 
Began to bloom—” 
one could at least imagine, easily enough, that it was no distant, 
classical everlasting ; but one’s own garden flower that took 
its place among other familiar flowers upon “ Lycid’s laureate 
hearse.” The white, pink and pale jessamine were there— 
“ The pansy freaked 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 sad embroidery wears.” 
But it was the amaranthus that was bidden to shed all its 
mournful beauty in memory of Lycidas, and how fitting and 
appropriate would be those drooping crimson plumes. So the 
amaranth continued to flourish in my garden, and presently I 
began to call it by its other and more familiar name. I think it 
was after I had read Wordsworth’s poem— his address to the 
love lies bleeding : — 
.■111 Ota Garaeii . — Margaret Deland. 
