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 
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