178 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
Myosotis palustris, and its common English 
name, Mouse-ear Scorpion-grass. 
It is not surprising that the Forget-me-not 
should have become a favourite with our own 
poets as well as those of Germany. In Gdthe’s 
“ Lay of the Imprisoned Knight,” translated 
by Lord Francis Leveson Gower, are these 
stanzas: 
Not on the mountain’s shelving side, 
Nor in the cultivated ground, 
Nor in the garden’s painted pride, 
The flower I seek is found. 
Where Time on sorrow’s page of gloom 
Has fix’d its envious lot. 
Or swept the record from the tomb, 
It says Forget me not. 
And this is still the loveliest flower. 
The fairest of the fair. 
Of all that deck my lady’s bower, 
Or bind her floating hair. 
It has been figured as a device on the seals 
of lovers, who have sung its praises in their 
verses: 
To flourish in my favourite bower. 
To blossom round my cot, 
I cultivate the little flower 
They call Forget-me-not. 
