Wormwood

“ Thus, also, when we found from Experience, that the Qualities of our common Wormwood, were not inferior to those of the Wormwood brought from Pontus and Rome, we ceased to bring it from these Places, and wisely used our own. Hoffman, in Lib. 2. de Med. Offic. §. 5. tells us, "That these European Mountains which are most exposed to a free Air, produce the wild or common Wormwood; whereas, those of the Pontic and Roman Kinds, are only to be found in Gardens." ”

“ A species called Sementina was formerly called Holy Wormwood, and its seed Holy Wormseed (semen sanctum) —for what reason is not known.——Dreams connected with Wormwood are considered of good augury, implying happiness and domestic enjoyment. Astrologers adjudge Wormwood to be a herb of Mars.
YARROW.—The Yarrow, or Milfoil (Achillea Millefolium) , is a plant which delights to find a home for itself in churchyards. Probably on account of this peculiarity it has been selected to play an important part in several rustic incantations and charms. ”

“ The width of the plain is about six miles, and its surface presents nothing but an unvaried scrub of wormwood growing on a soft, spongy, and gravelly soil. Neither village, nor tree, nor camp, nor, except a few very widely separated little patches, cultivation is to be seen, nor is any water to be found on it. ”

“ Joanna had berries out there, blackberries at least, and there was a few herbs in case she needed them. Mullein in great quantities and a plant o' wormwood I remember seeing once when I stayed there, long before she fled out to Shell-heap. Yes, I recall the wormwood, which is always a planted herb, so there must have been folks there before the Todds' day. A growin' bush makes the best gravestone; I expect that wormwood always stood for somebody's solemn monument. Catnip, too, is a very endurin' herb about an old place. ”

“ The wild wormwood and prickly pear were almost the only evidences of vegetative powers which the soil presented. A rugged desolation {2} of loam and sand bluffs, barren vales of red earth, and an occasional solitary boulder of granite; no mountains even, to relieve the dreary monotony of the sickening sight. About twelve o'clock it was pleasant to see a small band of antelopes show themselves on the brink of a bluff. ”

“ On rolls the stream with a perpetual sigh;
The rocks moan wildly as it passes by;
Hyssop and wormwood border all the strand,
And not a flower adorns the dreary land. ”

“ If Mars be in a Virgin, in the nativity, they say he causes the cholic (it is well God hath set some body to pull down the pride of man.) He in the Virgin troubles none with the cholic, but them that know not themselves (for who knows himself, may easily know all the world.) Wormwood, an herb of Mars, is a present cure for it; and whether it be most like a Christian to love him for his good, or hate him for his evil, judge ye. ”

“ Here richly with ridiculous display
Killed by excess was Wormwood laid away,
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged. ”

“ Everything that she ate or drank was likewise, from being in contact with wormwood, so impregnated with the flavor that the taste was overpowering. When she arrived at Havre she asked for a glass of water for the purpose of washing the taste from her mouth, but they brought her an infusion of wormwood, which she gulped down because she was thirsty, though the sight of it excited nausea. She went to Paris and consulted a famous physician, M. Sauve Moi, begging him to do something which would extract the wormwood from her body. ”

“ For three or four years this is the worm’s mode of life. To make itself big and fat is its sole business, and to this it devotes itself with vigor. I leave you to imagine what must become of an oak tree worked by a dozen of these gnawing creatures. Under the bark, which is almost intact, the trunk is one vast wound, perforated with galleries that are themselves littered with wormhole dust, and oozing with a brown juice that smells like a tannery. Unless the forester applies a remedy, and that speedily, the enormous oak will be ruined. ”

“ In the far-off, extra-galactic world of the worm people, George Campbell moved between cyclopean blocks of black masonry down long, fern-planted avenues holding aloft the round red god.
There was a harsh animal cry in the underbrush near the gleaming lake on earth where the mind of a worm creature dwelt in a body swayed by instinct. Human teeth sank into soft animal fur, tore at black animal flesh. ”

“ There is an infinite variety in the Grain of Woods, and the Colours of them. Amongst others, there is a Tree, call'd a Bastard-Cedar, whose Wood is really so porous (though you would not guess so upon view) that being turn'd into Cups, Wine and Brandy will soak through at the bottom in a short time.
16. There are many kinds of wood in the Indies, besides that of the Acajou or Cajous, that breed no Wormes, and there is a Tree, call'd White-wood, in Jamaica, of which if you build Ships, they will never breed any Worm. ”

“ In all the world there is no sadness like that which in boyhood sends you back to bed on Saturday morning with the mournful drip, drip, drip of a steady rain doling in your ears.
Out in the woodshed there is a can of the largest, fattest angle-worms ever dug from a rich garden-plot—all so happily, so feverishly, so exultantly captured last night when Anticipation strengthened the little muscles that wielded the heavy spade. All safe in their black soil they wait, coiled round and round each other into a solid worm-ball in the bottom of the can. ”

“ A forester well acquainted with all the paths through the submerged wood, awaited us in a house which rose above the flood like an island, and acted as our guide through a forest-wilderness which far surpassed all that we had hitherto seen, for the water had added new obstacles to those always present. Brushing past many branches which must usually be high above the ground, often stooping beneath boughs which blocked our way, we attempted to find a route between half or wholly fallen trees, logs, and drift-wood, and to penetrate to the heart of the forest. ”

“ On any muddy stretch of beach, when the tide is out, you may see numbers and numbers of little twisted casts, just like those which you may find on the lawn in the garden on any warm damp morning. These are made by Lug Worms, or “logs,” as the fishermen generally call them, and they really consist of sand which the worm has swallowed during the last three or four hours. For lug worms burrow by swallowing mouthful after mouthful of sand, until they can swallow no more. They eat their way down into the sand, in fact, just as earth-worms eat their way down into the ground. ”

“ The wood warblers are largely nocturnal migrants, whose long journeys in the dark of night over sea and lake and along the coast expose them to many perils, one being the lighthouses they strike with frequently fatal results. Their notes are seldom heard from the night sky during their spring migration, but on many a calm, quiet night in August and September, as they fly overhead, their sharp, sibilant, staccato notes punctuate the rhythmic beat of the tree-crickets singing in the shrubbery and stand out clearly among the soft, whistled calls of the migrating thrushes. ”

“ Wood warblers trill in the absurd forest, and the rich aroma of its leaves subtends the lighter fragrance of the blossoming wild flowers. In feathery glades among these Truro trees one might forget that winter is to come and bring bleakness and desolation unspeakable to the land with him. But if winter does not always warn, the sea does. Not so deep in any witch hollow can you hide, not so far may you wander in enchanted forests, as to escape its call. The trees murmur continually the song of the surf, and the crash of its breakers echoes continually in the air [87] overhead. ”

“ Others have names that carry us to southern realms, like the myrtle and the palm warblers; and others again tell of curious habits, as the worm-eating warbler, the hooded fly-catching warbler, and the black and white creeping warbler that scrambles about the tree trunks like a true creeper. There is nothing in all the year quite like the May woods. Then, if never again, you can step from your dooryard into an enchanted forest. The light yellowish effects of new green in the feathery masses of the oak catkins and the fresh, unfolding leafage of the forest trees are a rich feast to the eyes. ”

“ Nightfall and the robin’s method are best. Wait till the full darkness of a moist night. Hang a lantern about your neck and get down on your marrow bones by a grassy roadside. Worms do not see, and are not sensitive to light. You have but to crawl quietly forward and pick them up with a quick snatch, for the worm can feel, and he gets back into his burrow with an agility which is surprising. ”

“ For, to say nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds, which are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it, and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and grass. ”

“ You would think, perhaps, that when a lug worm bores its way through the loose sand, the sides of its burrow would fall in behind it as fast as it passed along. But from the surface of its body it pours out a thin, sticky liquid which binds the sand together, and forms a kind of lining to the burrow, like the brickwork of a railway tunnel. The burrow is generally about two feet deep, and the worm always lives in it with its head downwards. The worm itself, when fully grown, is from six to ten inches long. ”

“ The fact is, for the greater portion of the year in the tropics the worm can not operate at all. The soil, baked into a brick by the burning sun, absolutely refuses a passage to this soft and delicate animal. All the members of the earth-worm tribe, it is true, are natural skewers, and, though boring is their supreme function, the substance of these skewers is not hardened iron, and the pavement of a tropical forest is quite as intractable for nine months in the year as are the frost-bound fields to the farmer's plowshare. ”

“ Up until comparatively recently wormholes, considered as such, had no great lure to me. If I thought of them at all I thought of them as a topic which was rather lacking in interest to begin with and one easily exhausted. If you had asked me about wormholes I—speaking offhand—probably would say that this was a matter which naturally might appeal to a worm but would probably hold forth no great attraction for a human being, unless he happened to be thinking of going fishing. ”

“ Upon the sands of this island of Sombrero we found a small twig growing up like a young tree, and on offering to pluck it up, it shrinks down to the ground, and sinks, unless held very hard. On being plucked up, a great worm is found to be its root, and as the tree groweth in greatness, so doth the worm diminish; and as soon as the worm is entirely turned into tree, it rooteth in the earth, and so becomes great. ”

“ Soon there will be no sound but the splash and drip round the grey Laurentian rocks that fringe every island and run out here and there into dangerous jagged reefs. But, perhaps, if your ears are trained to the necessary degree, you may catch that faint indescribable murmur of the forest life coming down to drink, the bestirring of countless slender legs, the shaking of furry bodies, and the tread of small feet and hoofs on the moss and pine needles. For with the setting of the sun the forest life rises and moves. It travels by night and rests by day. ”

“ It is a novel experience to us to glide along the still reaches among these fluviatile greenwoods. We are embosomed in a submerged forest, whose trees are uniform in height and kind. All round us, like a hedge, is the glossy green foliage, sometimes brushing our boat on either side. And we scare up multitudes of water fowl, unused to such invasion of their solitudes. Wild duck, teal, grey snipe, shags, and many kinds that no one on board knows the names of, start from under our very bows. ”

“ The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence. And it moved not. A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts reached us from afar, as though an ichthyosaurus had been taking a bath of glitter in the great river. ‘After all, said the boiler-maker in a reasonable tone, ‘why shouldn’t we get the rivets.’ Why not, indeed! ”

“ Dwarf willows, at once youthful and senile forests, form dark patches in the heart of the reed-beds. What may be concealed in the gloomy wood, with its bogs and thickets, or by the reeds, remains almost quite hidden from the searching eye of the naturalist, for he can see through no more than the fringe of this wilderness, nor traverse it except along the broader waterways. ”

“ THE worm, the rich worm, has a noble domain
In the field that is stored with its millions of slain ;
The charnel-grounds widen, to me they belong,
With the vaults of the sepulchre, sculptured and strong.
The tower of ages in fragments is laid,
Moss grows on the stones, and I lurk in its shade ;
And the hand of the giant and heart of the brave
Must turn weak and submit to the worm and the grave. ”