Poppies

“ There is one good thing about poppies. They do not lie to you. They are frankly bad—the single ones, dry and thin with their savage burning, their breath from some deep-concealed place of decay. The double poppies are more dreadful—born of evil thoughts, blackness blent with their reds. ”

“ One thing to be remembered about poppies is not to rely greatly upon their durability and make the mistake of expecting them to fill too conspicuous a place, or keep long in the marching line of the garden pageant. They have a disappointing way, especially the great, long-stemmed double varieties, of suddenly turning to impossible party-coloured mush after a bit of damp weather that is most discouraging. Treated as mere garden episodes and massed here and there where a sudden disappearance will not leave a gap, they will yield a feast of unsurpassed colour. ”

“ Children worship them in their delight and greet one another with “The poppies are in bloom!” then scamper off by dozens to the mesas, where they deck their hair with poppy garlands and race to and fro like butterflies, wading knee-deep in poppy dust of gold. ”

“ Myriads of rich, gorgeous, brilliant poppies nod, lean, dance and swing their dainty cups of gold in the breeze. A mass of tossing gold, sheets of gold fire running up the valley, hill slopes and mountains. The pasture, mesa and uplands are all aglow. Poppies everywhere, found along the sea-shore in great patches, by the roadside, hid in the fence corners, in the green grass, at the edge of the woods, in the deserts and waste places. ”

“ The kingly poppies on the dry summit of the mound take no heed of these, the populace, their subjects so numerous they cannot be numbered. A barren race they are, the proud poppies, lords of the July field, taking no deep root, but raising up a brilliant blazon of scarlet heraldry out of nothing. They are useless, they are bitter, they are allied to sleep and poison and everlasting night; yet they are forgiven because they are not commonplace. Nothing, no abundance of them, can ever make the poppies commonplace. There is genius in them, the genius of colour, and they are saved. ”

“ In a priceless vase near the open window they held their heads in high disdain—those four red poppies who had gleefully chuckled and chatted together on the yesterday; but the fifth and silent poppy drooped upon her breast. I turned to go; she did not stay me; I stole to the door. "Take us away with you," cried those four garrulous poppies; "we are willing to die, and at once if need be, but not here in her hateful presence. Take us away." But the poppy on her breast only drooped and drooped the more and said not a word. ”

“ And I, O King, that down a path of gleaming ocean shells walk in the morning, found not, nor have since found, that poppy again, that hath gone on the journey whence there is not returning, out of my garden valley. And I, O King, made a dirge to cry beyond that valley and the poppies bowed their heads; but there is no cry nor no lament that may adjure the life to return again to a flower that grew in a garden once and hereafter is not.
“Unto what place the lives of poppies have gone no man shall truly say. ”

“ As we approached them, the ruffling wind laid its hand on the grasses, and they became emerald waves, a green spray of blades tossing and flashing in the full sunlight. As we passed, the same wind bowed them before it, and they were a shining, silken cloth. The poppies were a larger sort than those in the wheatfields, and of a very glorious crimson. ”

“ Besides these Poppies, the large double garden Poppies are very showy and of great variety in colour, but they are only annuals.
FOOTNOTES:
[223:1] "We usually think of the Poppy as a coarse flower; but it is the most transparent and delicate of all the blossoms of the field. The rest, nearly all of them, depend on the texture of their surface for colour. But the Poppy is painted glass; it never glows so brightly as when the sun shines through it. Wherever it is seen, against the light or with the light, always it is a flame, and warms the wind like a blown ruby."—Ruskin, Proserpina, p. ”

“ The story of the Shirley Poppies is one of magic, that a flower-loving clergyman who in 1882 sowed the seed of one specially beautiful Poppy which had no black in it, and then sowed those of its fine successors, produced thus a variety which has supplied the world with beauty. ”

“ One never quite knows all that this verse means until he has been in France and has seen the suffering, the heartache, the loneliness, the mud, and dirt and hurt; the wounds and pain and death which are everywhere.
Then he turns from all the suffering to find a blood-red poppy blooming in the field behind him; or a million of them covering a green field like a great blanket. These poppies are exactly like our golden California poppies. Like them they grow in the fields and along the hedges; even covering the unsightly railroad-tracks, as if they would hide the ugly things of life. ”

“ In these, after clearing and preparing a few inches of ground, I scatter the seeds of my most favorite plants, which re-sow themselves, perpetuate themselves, and multiply themselves. At this moment, whilst the fields display nothing but the common red poppy, strollers find with surprise in certain wild nooks of our country, the most beautiful double poppies, with their white, red, pink, carnation, and variegated blossoms. ”

“ When I read about the poppies Alphonse Karr sowed in the wild nooks of his native country, it made me think of John's French poppies, and paeony poppies, and ranunculus poppies, and carnation poppies, some very [65] large, some quite small, some round and neat, some full and ragged like Japanese chrysanthemums, but all of such beautiful shades of red, rose, crimson, pink, pale blush, and white, that if they had but smelt like carnations instead of smelling like laudanum when you have the toothache, they would have been quite perfect.
In one way they are nicer than carnations. ”

“ I was still "slipping up" poppies all day long, and every evening till half-past nine. Then I went home to the little cot in the dormitory of the "home." It would seem that all the world's wife and daughters were to wear nothing but poppies that season. But ours was only a small portion of Rosenfeld's output. Violets, geraniums, forget-me-nots, lilies-of-the-valley, apple-blossoms, daisies, and roses of a score of varieties were coming to life in this big garden in greater multitudes even than our common poppies. Forty girls worked on roses alone. The rose-makers are the swells of the trade. ”

“ One day he found a gap in the hedge, just big enough for a little calf to squeeze through, and in a twinkling he was through the hole and among his dear flowers. He rolled about in the corn and kissed the poppies and said: "Dear little bright flowers, I wish you would come into my field and live there with me," but the flowers did not speak to him. Then he got up and wandered all over the field, talking to all the poppies, until at last he stopped before the largest and reddest poppy of all.
"How beautiful you are!" he said. "Can't you speak to me?" ”

“ He finds the lilies, white and red, at Broadway, and the poppies, which have dropped most of their petals—apparently to let the roses, which are just coming out, give their grand party. Their humility is rewarded by the artist’s admirable touch in the little bare poppy-heads that nod on their flexible pins. ”

“ Otello brought a great, crimson poppy to the Children’s House one day. Poppies to the Roman baby are as dandelions to our children, so lavish a gift of the nature mother as to be of little value after the first bloom colors the grass. Otello’s [74] impulse was to pull off the already dropping petals of the flower, but Mario rescued it from the ruthless baby fingers. Holding the fragile stem between forefinger and chubby thumb, he ran the other forefinger lightly over the surface of the velvet-soft petals of the poppy. ”

“ I had some poppies once though, perfectly wonderful poppies. Miss Moran gave me the seeds. I hadn’t ever planted any flower seeds at all till one day I was down at her house and she was working in the flower garden and let me help. I sowed some seed of those great big blue larkspur—delphiniums she calls them, but I think larkspur’s nicest, don’t you?—and some poppies too. Poppies have got the cunningest baby seeds that you don’t dare cover up warm at all for fear you’ll choke them to death. ”

“ She was statuesquely tall, but with a toss of the head and a flirt of the skirt she dropped on hands and knees, crawled under the fence, and came to her feet on the inside with poppies in both her hands. I walked down the drive and talked ethically to her, and she went away. Then I put up more signs.
At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. As between the destructive forces and the will "to live," the poppies maintained an equilibrium with their environment. ”

“ They are the first of the annual Poppies to bloom. Then comes the variety which grows wild in France and Germany,—scarlet, with black blotches at the base of the petals. Last to bloom are the tall, fringed double and single Poppies,—white, pink and scarlet, growing on strong stems three feet high. Poppies must be sown thinly and the earth only sprinkled over the seeds. Sow as early in the spring as the ground can be worked, and thin out to six inches apart when the plants are well up. ”

“ She carried a child's parasol, which she was careful not to tear against the scrubby branches and bramble bushes as she sought for wild poppies along the edge of the fence. They were late poppies, a third generation, which had been unable to resist the call of the warm October sun. ”

“ In summer it is full of poppies, red as the blood that feeds their roots. And it is only the grasses and the poppies that hide the bones of men we've never yet put underground. Nature has been one of our chief sextons, here at Verdun. I wish you could have [Pg 179] seen the poppies a few months ago, mixed with blue marguerites and cornflowers—that we call 'bluets.' We used to say that our dead were lying in state under the tricolour flag of France. But I have made you sad, Mademoiselle. Je regrette! We must take you quickly to the citadel. ”

“ Rough-Stemmed or White Prickly Poppy (Argemone hispida) is a bushy, leafy-stemmed plant growing about 2-3 ft. high. It is distinguished from several other very abundant white-flowered poppies by the fact that it has rough hairs as well as spines on the stem. The flowers as a rule are larger, often being 4-6 inches broad. The unusual sepals of the prickly poppies should be noted, as they sometimes cause the flower buds to be confused with the fruits. There are usually 3 sepals, which are horned or hooded, armed with spines, and snugly overlapping each other by a narrow margin. ”

“ Poppy is a trifle more particular about the soil it grows in. It requires a rather rich, sandy loam. Again remember that poppies never stand transplanting. Poppy may be planted broadcast or in drills. The tall growing varieties should finally stand eighteen inches apart and the smaller ones nine inches. In order that poppies may blossom freely you should never let a seed capsule form. For you see that if one wishes bloom, one must not let the strength of a plant go to any other work except blossom making. ”

“ Much good poppies will do any one who tries to wear them! They droop and die in ten minutes and the sweet young things say ‘Oh, dear!’ and throw them away. And there are others who say my place here is ‘so original and quaint’ and they must have a corner in their gardens just like it, so they take the seeds away to plant them somewhere in the Middle West where the ground bakes as hard as iron and the hot air dries up the buds before they can open. ”

“ SYRRUP OF POPPIES. Take two pounds of poppy flowers, two ounces of raisins, shred them, and to every pound of poppies put a quart of boiling water, half an ounce of sliced liquorice, and a quarter of an ounce of anniseeds; let these stand twelve hours to infuse, then strain off the liquor, and put it upon the same quantity of poppies, raisins, liquorice, and anniseeds as before, and let this stand twelve hours to infuse, which must be in a pitcher, set within a pot or pan of hot water; then strain it, and take the weight in sugar, and boil it to a syrrup: when it is cold, bottle it. ”

“ Many of the Poppies are very ornamental garden plants. The pretty yellow Welsh Poppy (Meconopsis Cambrica) , abundant at Cheddar Cliffs, is an excellent plant for the rockwork where, when once established, it will grow freely and sow itself ”

“ Nevertheless, Oriental Poppies raised from seed mean much patient care, and many failures, but once thoroughly established they are "real estate," and have a kindly way of sowing themselves. As the Poppy, with its long "tap root," is most impatient of removal, this habit especially commends them to the grower.
The Iceland Poppy, though far less considerable [61] in size, is very hardy, and with its dainty bloom of lemon, orange, red, and white, makes a pretty show in a bed by itself; and the Iceland is one of the few poppies available for one's vases. ”

“ The country was such as would have delighted the eye of the scenic painter: the long, serrated ridges of crumbling sandstone, the broad swales, the grass- and flower-grown valleys between the bold, upstanding cliffs, and an occasional flaring patch of scarlet poppies giving a touch of color to their towering drabness. ”

“ The recent developments of this flower have brought it into great and deserved popularity, and it may be safely affirmed that few other subjects in our gardens afford a more imposing display of brilliant colouring during the blooming period. The delicate beauty of the Shirley Poppies is alone sufficient to create a reputation for the entire class, and the huge flowers of the double varieties make a gorgeous show. ”