The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-04-20


strained my mind and shall not try 1t
again One poem is enough to make man
famous and l have never seen mine i'm
proved upon:
'FThe gbull frog bellers in the bitches,
He's shuffied off his winter britches,
The hawk for infant chickens watchetn
And fore you know it one he cotcheth,
The lizard is Sunnin himself on rail-,
The lamb is shaking his new born tail,
King cotton has unfurled his banner
And scents the air with sweet guanner,
The darby is blowing his stubborn mule
And jerks the line with Gee, you fool.
Adown the creek and round the ponds
Are gentlemen and vagabonds
And all our little dirty sinners
Are digging bait and catching MINERS
That is classic and expressive. 1t
rhymes we'll and measures well and is
considered the champion spring poem
But / will venture TO make few re-
marks about flowers, for as Solomon
saith, 1.-The winter is past; the rain is
over and gone. The flowers appear on
the earth, the time for the singing of
birds is come and the voice of the tur-
tie dove is heard in the land" 1t is an
old story that when God made man and
gave him hearing and seeing and taste
and smelling He created birds to sing
for him and please his ears and grass to
grow and herbs and trees to bear him
fruit, but Adam wasn't very happy and
said these are all very good, but they
cannot love me nor talk to me nor COM
fort me when l am sick and sad 1 am
here alone and not even your angels visit
me. And SO God took pity on him and
| created woman and then he was happy.
Put woman didn't care to be digging and
hceng and planting and looking after the
sheep and the cows and so the Lord
created flowers especially for her enjoy
ment. He also taught her to sing and
make music on the harp and hence came
the old tradition that woman and music
and flowers were Gods best gifts to man.
You see that neither flowers nor music
is mentioned in the Mosaic account of
the creation and tradition says that they
were not made until woman was. 1t is
singular that in some of the ancient
| languages the same word that means
woman means flowers too. Among the
ancient Greeks, Romans, Persians and
and even idolatry of flowers. The lotus or
| sacred lily was worshipped as a god in
Egypt. In Japan the chrysanthemum is
| equally sacred and nearly all of their fe-
male children are named for some flow
er. In all countries every temple SER
vice, every festival or banquet or sa-
cred day-every birth or marriage or
death or funeral ceremony calls for a
n
out to fight and when they returned they
were crowned with wreaths and gar
lands; strangers were given flowers when
| they came to see you. Every flower had
its meaning and it's sentiment, as for in
stance a red rose meant 81 love you a
white rose II will marry you" The Chi
nese make the most lavish use of flow
ers and have Chinese alphabet of flow
ers. No modern nation has such love
| and taste for them nor such beautiful
gardens and Japan comes next. China is
called the Flowery Kingdom.
! Almost all of the civilized nations have
a national flower. Egypt, Turkey and
India have the lotus. Japan the chrys-
anthemum. Spain the pomegranate.
| France the iris or fleur de lis of Louis
| VII. Napoleon l tried to abolish it and
put the honey bee instead but the people
| rebelled and it is still the iris. Scotland
| has the thistle, Ireland the shamrock.
| Wales the leek, Mexico the cactus, Ger
many the corn flower, England the rose,
and the United States none at all. In
| 1889 we tried to make it the golden rod,
! but failed. The North voted for the
| trailing arbutus and the rose and some
green house flowers, and there was no
! flower elected That trailing arbutus
don't trail in this part of the country.
| Well of course, the rose is by univer-
! sal suffrage the queen of all the flow
ers.
| About six hundred years ago the Duke
| of Lancaster chose a red rose for his
emblem. His brother, the Duke of York,
| chose a white rose. The descendants of
these two princes got to fighting for the
crown and it was called the war of the
roses. But after awhile the son of one
married the daughter of the other and
| stopped the war and two roses were
| united into one and called the Tudor
| rose.
In the eleventh century the Danes made
war upon Scotland, and one dark night
planned an attack upon a fortress that
A
| took off their shoes and breaches SO as
| to swim across a moat that surrounded
| the fortress, thinking that the moat was
| deep and full of water. But the Scotch
had nearly filled the. moat with thistle
and it stuck the Danes so terribly that
they yelled in agony and got out quickly
and the Scotch took them unawares and
killed nearly all Of them before they
| could put on their shoes and breeches
The thistle saved Scotland, and So they
| took it for their national flower.
| Away back in the centuries, when gooo
| ST. Patrick went to Ireland as mis-
sionary, he preached to them about the
Trinity and how there were three per
| sons in one God, and the people laughed
| at him and said it was impossible ant
! they didn't believe it. SO the saint
| picked up shamrock stem with its three
leaves growing out of it and exclaimed
"Why not? Why not? IT this little plan
| can make three from one, why can't Got
| do it?" So he convinced and converted
all that people, and they took the clover
or shamrock plant for the national flow
| er.
In the sixth century the Normans In
vaded Wales, and just before grea
, battle one dark cloudy evening tn