.....Miles and miles
Far out of sight, her sunlit cornland smiles
Splashed with Sainfoin or with the cooler green
Of purpled trefoils, or the pallid sheen
Of beanfields that on windless nights pervade
With fragrant scents the roads the Romans made.
Francis Brett Young,The Island.
VERVAIN
Lift up your boughs of Vervain blue,
Dip't in cold September dew;
And dash the moisture, chaste and clear
O'er the ground and through the air.
Mason
A wreath of Vervain heralds wear,
Amongst our garlands named;
Being sent that dreadful news to bear,
Offensive was proclaimed.
Drayton
NETTLE
There is a willow grove aslant the brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream,
There, with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepards give a grosser name
But our cold maids do 'Dead men's fingers' call them.
Shakespeare
YUCCA
My Yucca which no winter quells
Although the months have scarce begun
Has pushed towards our faintest Sun
A spike of half accomplished bells.
(Author unknown to me)
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, neverfelt, a calm so deep!
---William Wordsworth
Here first she bathes, and round her body pours
Soft oils of fragrance and ambrosial showers,
The winds, perfumed, the balmy gale conveys
Through heaven, through earth, and all the aerial ways.
----Homer
LOTUS
In the square pool the
Lotus are tall,
Countless beauties dazzle each other.
The recluse rising from his night's sleep,
Wonders wheather
the wilderness is on fire.
----Yao Ho, T'ang Synasty
LILAC
Just now the lilac is in bloom
All before my little room;
And in my flower beds I think
Smile the carnation and the pink;
And from the borders, well I know,
The poppy and the pansy blow.
----Rupert Brooke
JONQUIL
JHis brook run down from the hills to feed my lilies
His clouds drift up from the sea to redden my rose,
He scatters his broken sun through the grass of the orchard
Where the jonquil laughs with delight and the daffodil glows.
----Alfred Noyes
MANDRAKE
Teach me whence that wondrous mandrake grows,
Whose magic root, torn from the earth with groans,
At midnight hour, can scace the fields away,
And make the mind prolific in its fancies.
----
Longfellow
BROOM
On me such beauteous summer pours
That I am covered o'er with flowers;
And when the frost is in the sky
My branches are so fresh and gay
That you might look at me and say-
"This plant can never die."
The butterfly, all green and gold,
To me hath often flown,
There in my blossom to behold
Wings lovely as his own.
----
Wordsworth
I know a bank where wild thyme blows
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
-----
Shakespeare
I know a cheery woman
And every time she calls
She leaves my carpets on the floor,
My pictures on the wall.
She doesn't steal my silver,
Or ask me for a loan,
She doesn't borrow my fountain pen,
She always brings her own.
But, show her in the garden
The treasures you have got,
And if you turn your head away
She'll pinch the bloomin' lot!
