Louisa Anne Twamley

“ Rivals the skies with as bright a hue;
And the hedge-geranium, fair and brief,
Twines 'mid each gay group her fragrant leaf,
And star-like blossoms, that blushing, peep
Down sheltered lane and o'er rocky steep.
List!—'twas the nightingale's note ye heard:
To the fairest flower sings the sweetest bird,
For the earliest rose has opened, to fling
Her fragrant breath on the breeze of Spring.
Few trees are so magnificent in foliage as the horse-chesnut, with its large fan-like leaves, far more resembling those of some tropical plant than the garb of a forest tree in climes like ours ”

“ There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
⁠Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;
⁠Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.
And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
⁠Green cow-bind, and the moonlight-coloured May,
And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
⁠Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day ”

“ Turned to flowers, still in some
Colours goe and colours come.
We must quit the garden's trim walks and flower-beds, if we would seek our next fair subject in its favourite haunts; for the fragrant and beautiful Wall-flower, the Cheiranthus Cheiri of botanists, loves to dwell amid the relics of past magnificence, to hide the dismantled ruins with its robe of green and gold, and to crown with its wealth of blossoms the mouldering walls and towers of our old abbeys and castles, where
⁠—— "Beautiful it blooms,
Gleaming above the ruin'd tower,
⁠Like sunlight over tombs." ”

“ Meadow-sweet, with "the blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook, Hope's gentle gem, the fair Forget-me-not," deck our river and lake banks with their rich enamel of rainbow-hues, and tremble in the sunshine, under the light feet of the dragon fly, as he darts, like a bright meteor, from leaf to flower; while the less brilliant but busy bee goes more heavily along, murmuring her story of industry and prudent foresight; and the gay ephemeron revels away her day's life in merry sport, without care or fear. ”

“ Nor till Spring called her forth began to peep;
But when Summer's gay wreaths had clothed the bowers,
Then, brightest of all, came the Commeline-flowers,
All clad in the pure and the beautiful hue
Of the Fairy-land heaven—celestial blue.
The Flowers' Fairy-queen paused, pleased and amazed,
As, descending one day, for the first time she gazed
On the brilliant and deep hue the Commeline wore,
So far fairer than e'er she had seen it before.
And from that day the sprite to loved Fairy-land flew
Less often than e'er she was wonted to do ”

“ The simple, delicate, and fragile Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) is a very common way-side flower, as well as a constant guest in the more lonely scenery of the mountain and moorland. It does not shun even the dusty turnpike roads, but suffers its exquisitely formed bells of twilight blue to gleam out, and tremble and wave over the oft-trodden path, as gracefully as in the still solitude of the heathery moor. The extreme thinness of the stems, and their buoyant elasticity, give a bounding, dancing effect to the flowers when stirred by the lightest breeze ”

“ The beauty and perfume of the Rose are celebrated in those sweet sonnets of Shakspeare, so familiar to all lovers of true and graceful poetry.
Oh! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses;
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
When Summer's breath their masked buds discloses.
But for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade ”

“ Frequently its fine large leaves hang in a curtain or drapery of verdure over the ragged hedgerow, or spring in festoons from tree to tree, with myriads of the purely white tent-shaped bells lying on the foliage in wreaths of the most graceful and fanciful forms. The leaves are far more beautiful in shape than the cultivated ones, being arrowy instead of round; and the calyx is also more ornamental. Like most wild flowers, when gathered, they quickly fade, though when immediately placed in water, I have had yards of the chaplet tendrils last several days in great freshness and beauty. ”

“ When Spring's light finger wreaths their lofty brows
With her sweet, gem-like flowers,—as when at first,
In their slow-growing infancy, those towers
Caught the fair sunlight on their unrent sides.
So while Art's noblest works are born and die,
Nature's renewèd youth outlasteth all.
The radiant Summer far exceeds the gladsome Spring in her garden beauties; some few of them—alas! that they are few—we must gossip about presently: meanwhile we cannot do better than read, at the same time fancy, this very fanciful description of Panglorie's Garden, by Giles Fletcher ”

“ From plant or flower—the very doubt endears
⁠My sadness ever new,
The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee.
Mignionette owes nothing of its fame to outward show or splendour of attire, few flowers being robed more soberly; but the uncloying sweetness of its perfume, and its abundant growth, render it one of our best garden treasures. It should be the emblem of those whose beauty and excellence are found in the mind instead of the face.
External loveliness may well be imaged by the gay and brilliant flowers with which the modest Mignionette is grouped in the illustration. ”

“ The Lily and the Rose, so long unrivalled in the annals of Poesy, are no more the absolute monopolists they have been, for in these days a considerable share of metrical celebrity is awarded to the sentimental favourite of modern Poetasters, the Forget-me-not; which, delicate, and dear, and beautiful as it is, the indiscriminate eulogy and fashionable preeminence, now given to it, serve to render less pure and poetical in the eyes of the true votaries of Nature and Romance than many a yet unpraised flower. ”

“ The general hue of the evergreens, which have so kindly solaced us during the wintry months, seem to acquire a more sombre tinge, as the vivid yellow green of the other trees now quite eclipses their beauty, although, when the young shoots of firs and cedars are put forth, the alternation of colour in them is very striking.
The birds are now busy, too, and musically clamorous; hundreds of them are warbling, and chirping, and chattering at once, yet in their mingled voices we hear no discord. It is all harmony—the music of nature. ”

“ Though born beneath a sunnier sky, and nourished by a kindlier soil than ours, yet the pure, the fragrant, the modest, maidenly Jasmine has become unto us as an old familiar friend, and is now as well known, and as frequently seen climbing round the cottage-porch, as our own luscious Honeysuckle, I love to see them twining together, the stranger and the native, and wooing into kindly companionship the delicate China-rose, with her clustered blossoms of faint pink, contrasting so well with the deep rich crimson of the unclosed buds. ”

“ Floating about in the air, and so light as to be seen scudding along before a breeze so soft that you can scarcely feel it upon your cheek, they form one of the great beauties of Autumn. Who has not in childhood chased the hairy Thistle-down? for it furnishes much better sport than a feather, from its extreme lightness; and being spread out in a globular form, rolls along like a fairy-wheel upon the air. ”

“ I'll never rob thee of a lily nor rose,
⁠While the bonny bright gorse may be mine;
For that flower is a charter to love while it blows,
And entitles thy Lubin, wherever it grows,
⁠To a kiss from those sweet lips of thine.
Nay, pout not, nor frown—though you thus prove the flower
⁠E'en more emblematical yet—
For the golden bud lives in a weapon-girt bower,
All around and about her are guardians of power,
⁠And countless spears valiantly set.
But as, when resolved the bright blossom to gain,
⁠We value not spear head nor lance ”

“ Shelley, in the exquisite description of flowers in his Poem of the "Sensitive Plant," calls
⁠Narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness.
The scent of the Narcissus, too, is extremely fragrant, and when adorning our windows in wintry weather, how delightfully does the perfumed air of the snug, fire-enlivened study seem to whisper, or at least breathe, of Summer's sweet children and merry blue sky! Yes, the Narcissus is sweet, but it yields the palm of fragrance to its modest neighbour in the wreath. ”

“ I always marvel how any one can prefer seeing the cup-like corolla of the Snowdrop or Daffodil, crammed with a multitude of petals crushed and squeezed out of all form and beauty, with the central arrangement of the flower, the stamens, anther, &c., wholly hidden from sight. [5]
The elegant, veined flowers of the Hibiscus are among our Autumn darlings; and the China-asters look cheerfully out from their many-leaved calyces. The Sweet Peas still adorn the trellis with their winged blossoms, and the gay Golden-rod bears aloft its rich yellow crown. ”

“ It would not become so true-hearted a lover of our own dear land as myself to forget that, while gay France entwines her brow with the Fleur-de-lis—Scotland, bonny Scotland, with the Thistle—and green Erin, that emerald gem on the blue sea's breast, has her modest Shamrock—England wreaths her diadem with the queenly Rose. Would that the memory of that emblem were undimmed—that we might look upon our Rose and know its fair fame was unspotted, its leaves unstained by the blood of England's children ”

“ That do the like with flowers of lovelier growth?
Oh! ye are coy and proud—but beautiful—
Wondrously beautiful is every one
Among your varied tribes. Some of ye, pale, [9]
That hang in rich profusion o'er the porch
Of many a cottage in our own dear land,
Clasping the Jasmine and the monthly Rose,
As in affection, for that they are not
The natives of our soil, but, like ye, deign
To glad a clime less genial than their own.
And some of ye are bright as the young clouds
That blush with joy to see the sun arise. ”

“ The spray, from which my illustration was made, ripened its many-tinted berries under the shelter of Warwick Castle, where the Arbutus trees, in the great court, are truly magnificent.
The last subjects of my pencil, in this small portrait-gallery of Nature's beauties, are mere memories of flowers the offspring of our Summer friends, who possess our love, rather for the sake of their parents than their own loveable qualities. But the Blackberry claims much of our affection on its own account, were it only for the happy scenes of childhood which it can bring back to our mind's eye. ”

“ But in our Flower legends Herrick will be heard to greatest advantage; in grace, fancy, and the most melodious cadences of verse, he is unrivalled, either by old or modern writers. Yet while thus eulogising his really sweet poems, I ought, perhaps, to add, that these shine out but as straggling stars in a clouded sky; and that in the entire collection of his works there is far more to pass over than to pause and admire; a selection of Herrick's poems would form so valuable and delightful a volume, I much wonder such a work has not yet been published. ”

“ If the oak—the true British oak—be the forest king, let us give him at least a partner in his majesty; and let the chesnut, whose noble head is crowned by the hand of Spring with a regal diadem, gemmed with myramids of pearly, and golden, and ruby flowers—let her be queen of the woods in bonny England: and while we listen to the musical hum of the bees, as they load themselves with her wealth of honey, we will fancy they are congratulating their noble and generous friend on her new honours. ”

“ A summer's day finds it withered ere noon; and each morning decks it with new blossoms, to bask a few brief hours in the sunshine, then shrivel, fall, and pass away. But it would ill become me to disparage the beauty of this fair and favourite flower; the great profusion and luxuriance of its blossoms amply compensating for their short-lived beauty; and when many stems are intertwined, the variety of colour is extremely gay and ornamental. ”

“ Seeing his beauty, in love with it fell.
The flower and fruit of the Arbutus, or Strawberry-tree, are represented in the following plate. We have few shrubs which contribute so much and so constantly to the adornment of our gardens and lawns as this. Its deep glossy ever-green leaves are alone beautiful; but when in Autumn these are gemmed with its clusters of delicate flowers, and the richly-hued ripening fruit (which is a year in attaining maturity, and so appears with the succeeding blossoms) , I know few objects so beautiful as a fine Arbutus. ”

“ For my own part, I think a finely grown tall Thistle-plant, with its chevaux-de-frise'd leaves, and bright purple flowers, swelling out from the bristling calyx, like a full petticoat from under a green boddice, a very handsome and ornamental addition either in field or garden (I am no farmer) ; and the evident relish with which I have seen poor hedge-feeding donkies crunching its rough stalks and leaves, is to me a very conclusive argument in favour of the persecuted Thistle-tribe; which seems to occupy a similar position in the race of flowers to that held by the Gypsies in our own. ”

“ The Gorse appears the emblem, indeed the portrait, of many a kindly being, whose rough and even repulsive exterior so overshadows their better and brighter parts, that the careless and superficial observer would declare "all barren:" while they who look beyond the surface, find qualities and beauties in the friend's mind and the flower's scent, that prove, though "all is not gold that glitters," the true treasure must often be sought in the hardest rock. ”