28 language of flowers. 
wouldst blush at the approach of love ; the proud 
laurel denotes thy beauty’s triumph; and the 
tender forget-me-not is the emblem of eternal 
constancy. 
This idea of rendering flowers the vehicle of a 
lover’s sentiments has been thus happily seized by 
one of our early English poets : 
Aske me why I send you here 
This firstling of the infant year ; 
Aske me why I send to you 
This Primrose all bepearl’d with dew; 
I strait will whisper in your ears, 
The sweets of love are washt with teares. 
Aske me why this flow’r doth show 
So yellow, green and sickly too ; 
Aske me why the stalk is weak, 
• And bending, yet it doth not break; 
I must tell you, these discover 
What doubts and fears are in a Lover. 
The following lines from Drayton’s Muses Ely¬ 
sium may afford some useful hints for the arrange¬ 
ment of a bouquet, with regard to the harmonious 
blending of the tints of the different flowers. A 
nymph is supposed to be speaking : 
