Clove

“ When the year is rather hot, and there is little rain, they gather in each of these islands from three to four hundred bahars of cloves. The clove tree does not live except in the mountains, and if it is transferred to the plain it dies there. [237] The leaf, the bark, and the wood, as long as they are green, have the strength and fragrance of the fruit itself. If these are not gathered when just ripe they get so large and hard that nothing of them remains good except the rind. ”

“ A tune to the daylight humming;
And away she went o'er the sparkling dew,
Where the grass was green, the violet blue,
And the gold of the sun was coming.
And what first tempted the roving Bee,
Was a head of the crimson clover.
"I've found a treasure betimes!" said she,
"And perhaps a greater I might not see,
If I travelled the field all over.
"My beautiful Clover, so round and red,
There is not a thing in twenty,
That lifts this morning so sweet a head
Above its leaves, and its earthy bed,
With so many horns of plenty!" ”

“ Pretty little clover, with your flowers so fair,
Filling with their sweetness all the summer air;
Sad it is to see you crushed by careless feet,
Pretty little clover, with your blossoms sweet.
Grows the pretty clover everywhere we look ”

“ The Four-leaf Clover
I know a place where the sun is like gold, And the cherry blooms burst like snow; And down underneath is the loveliest nook, Where the four-leaf clovers grow. One leaf is for faith, and one is for hope, And one is for love, you know; And God put another one in for luck— If you search, you will find where they grow. But you must have faith and you must have hope, You must love and be strong, and so If you work, if you wait, you will find the place Where the four-leaf clovers grow. ”

“ Pure oil of cloves is almost colorless, with a faint yellow tinge and the strong smell and burning taste of cloves. When old it turns to a reddish brown color. It has a greater specific gravity than water, in which it will sink.
Clove stalks and mother cloves are used in the manufacture of ground cloves and mixed spices. In Brazil the flower-buds of the tree whose bark furnishes cloves cassia are often used as substitutes for true cloves. ”

“ In the early fields of clover,
Comes the little brown-clad singer,
Flitting in and out of bushes,
Hiding well behind the fences,
Piping forth his song of sadness,
"Poor—hu—manity—manity—manity." ”

“ It is a common opinion, but extremely erroneous, that cloves, nutmegs, and mace grow all on one tree. One clove-tree commonly produces sixty, seventy, or eighty pounds of cloves in one season; and every sixth year they are sure to have a double crop. ”

“ As the year advances, as the clover blossoms disappear, and the spring fades into summer, he gradually gives up his elegant tastes and habits, doffs his poetical suit of black, assumes a russet, dusty garb, and sinks to the gross enjoyment of common vulgar birds. ”

“ On Clover's breast he softly lit,
And folded his bright wings there.
"Dear flower," the butterfly whispered low,
"Long hast thou waited for me;
Now I am come, and my grateful love
Shall brighten thy home for thee;
Thou hast loved and cared for me, when alone,
Hast watched o'er me long and well;
And now will I strive to show the thanks
The poor worm could not tell.
Sunbeam and breeze shall come to thee,
And the coolest dews that fall;
Whate'er a flower can wish is thine,
For thou art worthy all. ”

“ In that wild garden were four varieties of clover—the white, creeping clover of blue-grass lawns; the pinkish purple-headed clover of farm meadows; the tall, shrub-like sweet clover, with tassel blossoms of white, and a blood-red clover, with pointed heads like pine cones. The crimson clover is a foreigner. Grown all over Europe, it is not often seen in America. In that wild garden it was a well-born emigrant among hardy and rough American weeds. ”

“ Here it lies almost as treeless as some rich old clover-mead; yonder, its luxuriant smooth grasses give way to a dense wood of cedars, oaks, and pines. Not a living creature, either man or beast, breaks the visible silence of this inmost paradise; but for ourselves, standing at the precipice, petrified, as it were, rock on rock, the great world might well be running back in stone-and-grassy dreams to the hour when God had given him as yet but two daughters, the crag and the clover. ”

“ The dried branches of sweet clover will fill a room with delightful fragrance; but they will not drive away flies, nor protect woollens from the ravages of moths, as old women once taught us to believe. ”

“ Waves of dusk and green and gold, circle across the ripening barley, and long leaves upthrust, at intervals, like spears. The trees are in heaviest foliage, insect life is at its height, and the shimmering air is filled with buzzing, dancing forms, and the clover is gay with the sheen of innumerable gauzy wings. ”

“ They grow on trees, and some of a goodish height too. The cloves are the bud or blossom of the tree before the flower comes; and they must be picked early in time, or else they’re not fit for anything. Their name, ‘cloves’—I don’t know whether you are aware on it, sir—is from the little things resembling a small nail—clavo, as it’s called in the Spanish. ”

“ He is to be found in the soft bosoms of the freshest and sweetest meadows, and is most in song when the clover is in blossom. He perches on the topmost twig of a tree, or on some long, flaunting weed, and, as he rises and sinks with the breeze, pours forth a succession of rich, tinkling notes, crowding one upon another, like the outpouring melody of the skylark, and possessing the same rapturous character. ”

“ A vision of green vastitudes beneath an April sky,
And clover pastures drenched with silver rain.
He knows that it can never be, that he is down and out;
Life leers at him with foul and fetid breath ”

“ The rabbit-foot clover takes kindly to the sandy soil, and, as it flowers from late May well into September, and holds its little furry tails like autumn pussy-willows until freezing weather, makes a very interesting sort of bed all by itself, and massed close to it, as if recognizing the family relationship, is the little creeping bush clover with its purplish flowers. ”

“ On a rich and beautiful prairie, green and red, the wild clover and the roses, and occasionally a plum-tree, varying the hues were lying prostrate, as far as the eye could reach, hundreds of thousands of animals of all species, some quietly licking their tired limbs, and others extending their necks, without rising, to graze upon the soft grass around them. ”

“ And in the broad meadow between us and home we well know that for the quest we can have not only four-leaved clovers, but perchance a handful of five and six-leaved prizes. The secret is out. Flowers and leaves are not cast like bullets in rigid moulds, but differ from their parents much as children do. ”

“ Often of a summer's evening have we watched the humming-birds flitting about the meadows, passing from one tuft of clover to another, then resting a moment on a tall spear of timothy grass, then off again to fresh clover, scarcely touching the other flowers, and continuing frequently in the same field until the very latest twilight. ”

“ If anyone could find a five-leaved clover, and carry it with him to the heath, the stones could not harm him, for the five-leaved clover is a magic plant that has power over all enchanted things, and those stones are enchanted. ”

“ Wild roses emerge from the darkness, innocently agleam like children's eyes. A sleepy tree bends its boughs above them.
There is life at the edge of the ancient terrace where broad-leaved clover grows in the broken urns. A girlish form, slender and lithe, swinging a great, old-fashioned straw hat, having a shawl wound crosswise over throat and waist, has stepped forth from the decaying old gate. ”

“ Butterflies innumerable greet us and dance along the roadside, as if to see us safely home. Many are small and yellow, or white and yellow, with handsomely bordered wings, and they are greatly interested in the clover. ”

“ THE CLOVER Some sings of the lily, and daisy, and rose, And the pansies and pinks that the Summertime throws In the green grassy lap of the medder that lays Blinkin' up at the skyes through the sunshiney days; But what is the lily and all of the rest Of the flowers, to a man with a hart in his brest That was dipped brimmin' full of the honey and dew Of the sweet clover-blossoms his babyhood knew? I never set eyes on a clover-field now, Er fool round a stable, er climb in the mow, But my childhood comes back jest as clear and as plane As the smell of the clover I'm sniffin' again ”

“ While the grass is still green, it has lost its freshness through the drouth and heat of summer; and the wild flowers that once blossomed here are but a memory. A few clover blooms, in defiance of fate and frost, are trying bravely to hold up their heads, but they have lost the rosy glow of youth. ”

“ To dream of clover, foretells prosperity will soon enfold you. For a young woman to dream of seeing a snake crawling through blossoming clover, foretells she will be early disappointed in love, and her surroundings will be gloomy and discouraging, though to her friends she seems peculiarly fortunate. ”

“ They are also reputed to gather colours from the sunset clouds, and with tiny but accurate brushes cover flower petals with their delicate tints. Fairies seldom reveal themselves to men, but the lucky possessor of a four-leafed Clover is sometimes privileged to see them. ”

“ Three names, clustered together in more than one marked association, have a pleasant fragrance in English literature. A triple-leaved clover in a field thickly studded with floral beauties, the modest merits of Herbert, Vaughan and Crashaw
"Smell sweet and blossom in the dust"—
endeared to us not merely by the claim of intellect, but by the warmer appeal to the heart, of kindred sympathy and suffering. ”

“ What green beauty there is all around! How handsome is the white clover which the city horse greedily fills his mouth withal, as Mr Welltodo and brother 'Zekiel lead the good-natured creature to the barn! The grocer follows the example, and has a head of clover in his mouth also,—sweeter than the cloves he put there yesterday. How delicate the leaf is; how nicely framed together! No city jeweller unites metals with such nice economy of material, or fits them with such accuracy of joint. ”

“ For the observant clover-hunter, if his mind and eye work together, soon learns that the "four-leaved" variety is fond of company, and that the whim of the plant which thus produces one such leaf is very apt to be humored in several others. Thus, having discerned one four-leaved clover, we assume a tendency in the parent plant, which further search often discloses, sometimes to our great surprise, and, if we are as superstitious [216] as our antique philosopher above quoted, to our unbounded satisfaction. ”

“ A hunt for four-leaf clovers, of which there may be a hundred or more made of green paper and hidden about the rooms, will be enjoyed. The one who finds the most may be rewarded either by some trifle like a pin-tray or by a stick-pin in the form of a four-leaf clover or horseshoe ”

“ The origin of the very old superstition that a four-leafed clover' portends fortune and happiness is lost in antiquity... One old legend is that Eve, upon being ejected from the Paradise, took a four-leafed clover with her. ”

“ One first thinks of some strange forms in leaf, and if the eyes are opened to them they may be met with upon every hand. The "four-leaf" clover is lucky perhaps only because the finder is sharper-eyed than others, and stands a brighter chance of seeing success as it crouches almost invisible in the wild grass, the tilled field, or wherever the eyes may be set to find it. ”

“ They love clover, oh, how they love clover, which shows that they’re not in the least bit snobbish, for clover grows wild in the fields, of course.
“The bees love buckwheat fields, and from many, many flowers and a great deal of gathered nectar and pollen, they get the amount of honey they feel they need for themselves for the time being, and to store for the future.
“They always work, they hardly ever play. ”

“ Most peasants in Europe will tell you that a dream about the flower foretells not only a happy marriage, but long life and prosperity. For ages the clover has been counted a mystic plant, and all sorts of good and bad luck were said to attend the finding of variations of its leaves which had more than the common number of leaflets. ”

“ But it frequently takes exception to the botany and gives us an extra leaf, and thus we have our "four-leaved clover," a rarity which many of us, seek as we will, have never yet been able to discover in its native haunt, even though a whole handful of them are plucked here and there before our eyes by our more favored companions. Indeed, there are some lucky folk who seem literally to stumble upon "four-leaved grasse" wherever they go—who, having found one leaf, will sit down quietly in the grass and ere long accumulate a bouquet. ”

“ God’s clover, we, and feed His Course-of-things;
The pasture is God’s pasture; systems strange
Of food and fiberment He hath, whereby
The general brawn is built for plans of His
To quality precise. Kinsman, learn this:
The artist’s market is the heart of man ”

“ There are also trees producing cloves, which when they are in flower emit an odour so pungent that they kill every man who cometh among them, unless he shut his mouth and nostrils.... In a certain part of that island they delight to eat white and fat men when they can get them...."—Friar Jordanus, 30-31. ”