Asphodel. 
95 
“My own, my own, 
Who earnest to me when the world was gone, 
And I, who only looked for God, found thee! 
I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad. 
As one who stands in dewless asphodel 
Looks backward on the tedious time he had 
In the upper life, so I, with bosom swell, 
Make witness here, between the good and bad, „ 
That love as strong as death retrieves as rvell. 
In his “ Sensitive Plant,” Shelley places amongst the other 
dainty plants that in the enchanted garden grew 
“ Delicate bells, 
As fair as the fabulous asphodels.” 
Milton makes use of this floral token for forming the couch 
of our first parents in “ Eden’s guiltless garden.” 
In the German Blumensprache this flower signifies everything 
shall soon be revealed to you; and this will be seen to be a most 
poetical signification when it is remembered that the asphodel 
is dedicated to departed souls, to whom Death does indeed 
reveal everything. In his beautiful ballad of the “ King of 
Thule,” Gothe has finely worked out this idea of fidelity unto 
death: 
“There was a king in ThuD, 
Who unto death was true; 
To whom his love in dying 
A golden goblet threw. 
“At ev’ry feast before him 
The golden cup was set; 
And as he drank came o’er him 
A mist—his eyes were wet. 
“ And when his life was closing, 
He gave his cities up; 
He gave his lands and castles, 
But kept his dead love’s cup. 
“ He feasted in his kingly hall 
With all his knights around; 
High in the lordly castle, 
That o’er the ocean frown’d. 
“ Uprose the olden toper, 
And life’s last draught did drain. 
Then threw the sacred goblet 
Down in the soaring main. 
“ He saw it falling—drinking— 
And sinking in the sea; 
His eyelids closed for ever, 
And never more drank he . 3 
