INTRODUCTION, 
5 
LADY. 
“ I give to thee the honey-flower, 
Courteous, best, and bravest knight; 
Fragrant in the summer shower, 
Shrinking from the sunny light: 
May it not an emblem prove 
Of untold, but tender love ?” 
Flowers also are used for divination. All readers of 
Gothe will remember Marguerite’s flower. The American 
poet Lowell sends the following pretty lines on tire 
subject, with a pressed flower :— 
“ This little flower from afar, 
Hath come from other lands to thine ; 
For once its white and drooping star 
Could see its shadow in the Rhine. 
“ Perchance some fair-haired German maid 
Hath plucked one from the self-same stalk, 
And numbered over, half afraid, 
Its petals in her evening walk. 
“ ‘ He loves me, loves me not!’ she cries; 
* He loves me more than earth or heaven 1’ 
And then glad tears have filled her eyes 
To find the number was uneven. 
‘ ‘ And thou must count its petals well, 
Because it is a gift from me : 
And the last one of all shall tell 
Something I’ve often told to thee. 
“ But here at home, where we were bom 
Thou wilt find flowers just as true, 
Down-bending every Summer morn 
With freshness of New England dew. 
“For Nature, ever kind to love, 
Hath granted them the same sweet tongue\ 
Whether with German skies above, 
Or here our granite rocks among.” 
There is another mode, resembling the Scottish and 
