The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-05-08
Flower Thoughts and Fancies.

Flower Thoughts and Fancies.
| Somebody says that flowers are til
"fugitive poetry of nature ;" and
wild flowers most eminently be
longs the remark. Our cultivate
flowers cannot be called " fugitiv
| poetry :" we do not find them scattere
along the roadsides, smiling to til
brooks, nodding on hills to every breeze
Not They'll They are collected an
placed in our houses and Conservatives
labeled, and surrounded by the cost,
accessories which belong to all vol
umes of collected poetry.
But with wild flowers it is different
We come upon them, indeed, as upol
| scraps of poetry tucked into the cor
! ner of some newspaper of every-da,
life, and in the one case, as in the other
exclaim in a sort of patronizing surprise
"Why, how pretty that is
One cannot, however, be very vel
acquainted with the woodlands, with
out quickly losing any feeling O
patronage he may once have had
There are so many dainty wild bios
SONS to harmonic with any mood il
which they may be approached, behel6
or gathered.
We find all sorts of poetry speaking
from them; palest of blue hare bells,
which suggest a dainty poem, full OF
tenderness without strong passion,
which indeed, they, as we'll as people,
are better without. Then there are
violets, blue and white and yellow, like
little ballads, tales of unconscious hero
ines; gill; YER the-ground, Immediately
reminding one of scores of verses he
has seen in the neglected corner of some
country paper with blue bits of pref
tiness scattered here and there, but so
small that one doesn't care for the
trouble of hunting them out and be-
sides, like those scraps of verse, there
is so much of it that it can be had at
any time.
But flowers, also, tell us other things;
they are vivid reminders of people we
have known, of faces we have seen,
hearts we have learned to love and
trust.
Who can ever see valley-lily, with
out feeling of tender greeting, or Ito
go from the pretty to the absurd) who
can look at one of those saucy Jack-in-
peeping up out of its green
sheath, and not expect it to speak, and
in an Grafton as long as a country min
listers, tell of its relationship to the
regal Gala? Poor rela tions, truly |!
How indignant the Gala would be!
Then there are the lovely blossoms
of the ring-beauty, at which one feels
as much surprise as at finding Perdita
in shepherds cottage.
The flowers of the mullen are like
families in a tenement house, pretty
enough individually, but collectively
we'll, they'd be rather unpleasant guests,
to say the least of it.
Autumn flowers are like stories of
the tropics. Their very names are sug-
gestive-golden-rod, flaming pin1ster,
trumpet-fowers.
And water-lilies what shall we say
of them? Lovely, fearful Undines,
gifted with souls through unavoidable
wretchedness. And, by the way, what
a beautiful aIlegory that is, and alas
how true to life.
But if water-lilies have souls, wood
land vines certainly have no conscience.
Running along the ground, climbing up
trees, clinging to fences, making use of
anything and everything, without so
much as ''by your leave" and to be
like parasitical friends, which,
like them, once given afooting, can not
easily De removed.
It is quite pretty amusement to
trace in flowers resemblances to ones
friends. We have often heard people
say that every human being jtlike some
SO, some of them are GER
tainly only fossil remains, which, by the
way, has nothing TO do with the sub
ject).
The resemblance of every one to some
flower is quite as easily traceable.
Bright, insipid verbenas, queenly lilies,
royal japonicas; The readers of 70
nance are familiar with heroines who
are like them al, and can find among
their friends the same characteristics.
in their favorite flowers Some care
only for roses, seeing no beauty, smell
ing no perfume in anything else. Such
people are apt to be singularly pure in
life and actions, tender in all loves and
but exclusive in everything.
Hosts of people prefer pansies, and are
Justly indignant with the writer who
said that they always reminded him of
faces. Love-in. idleness, hearts
ease, theughts,-certainly there never
was flower with SO many pet names.
People of liberal tastes have, of course,
heir favorites, but like nearly all flow
srs. There certainly is nothing which
more to the beauty of a
nome than flowers, and nothing SO full
IF pretty fancies.
rSpake full we'll in language quaint and olden,
One who dweleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, 80 blue and
golden,
Stars that in earth's armament do shine
The Atdine.