Flowers for Thoughts To me the meanest flower that blows can give William Wordsworth. I pluck the flowers I plucked of old The self-same Buttercups they seem, Owen Meredith. Flowers preach to us if we will hear. Christina G. Rossetti. Flowers are Love's truest language; they betray Like the divining-rods of Magi old, Where precious wealth lies buried; not of gold, But love-strong love, that never can decay! Park Benjamin. "Pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts." Of all the bonny buds that blow In bright or cloudy weather, Shakespeare, Of all the flowers that come and go The little purple pansy brings Thoughts of the sweetest, saddest things. Mary E. Bradley. Heart's-ease! one could look for half a day Great purple pansies, each with snowy heart, And golden ones with eyes of deepest blue; Some "freaked with jet," some pure white ones apart, But all so sweet and fresh with morning dew, I could not bear to lose them, I could not help but choose them, For sweet Content sat singing where they grew. Selected. Every-Day Botany Who doubts there are classes And flowers subdivided in many a way? These manifold specimens-day after day. You've met nettles that sting you, Their exquisite incense from warm, hidden hearts, That tell their own stories With round honest faces, rehearsing their parts. Sometimes an old thistle Will bluster and bustle, When chance or necessity leads you his way; He's just as God made him; Perchance some small good he has done in his day. The poppies think sleeping Far better than weeping, And never let worry usurp a good nod; They'll laugh and grow fatter O'er any grave matter, When sensitive plants would sink under the sod. The hollyhocks greet you Wherever they meet you, With stiffest of bows, or a curt little phrase; Was haughty or sullen, And warm are their hand-shakes, if awkward their ways. Ah! never a flower, Blooming wild or in bower, But lives in Humanity's flora anew; May I ask, in conclusion, 'Mid all this confusion, What flower we shall find if we analyze you? Katherine H. Perry. Garden Friendships "The Garden of Autographs" My garden is a veritable album, and as I wander over our place I find many a dear friend or happy hour commemorated in it. This little clump of oxalis, naturalized so prettily in the woods, was gathered one lovely day when a merry party joined us in an expedition to the Profile Notch. That group of lady's-slippers came from the woods of a dear friend in Vermont. Here are moss-roses from a magnificent rose-garden in Massachusetts, and there are seedlings from the home of Longfellow, or willows rooted from cuttings brought from the South by Frederick Law Olmsted. Hardly a flower-loving friend have I who has not left an autograph in plant, or shrub, or tree in my garden, and in like manner many a thrifty plant has left my borders for those of distant friends. Mrs. Theodore Thomas (Rose Fay). A garden that one makes oneself becomes associated with one's personal history, and that of one's friends interwoven with one's tastes, preferences and character, and constitutes a sort of unwritten but withal manifest autobiography. Show me your garden, provided it be your own, and I will tell you what you are like. The Love of Flowers Alfred Austin. "Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps; Perennial pleasures plants and wholesome harvests reaps. You have heard it said-(and I believe there is more than fancy even in that saying, but let it pass for a fanciful one)-that flowers only flourish rightly in the garden of some one who loves them. I know you would like that to be true; you would think it a pleasant magic if you could flush your flowers into brighter bloom by a kind look upon them; nay, more, if your look had the power, not only to cheer, but to guard;-if you could bid the black blight turn away, and the knotted caterpillar spare-if you could bid the dew fall upon them in the drought, and say to the south wind in frost-"Come, thou South, and breathe upon my garden that the spices of it may flow out!" John Ruskin. As I work among my flowers, I find myself talking to them, reasoning and remonstrating with them, and adoring them as if they were human beings. Celia Thaxter. "Thou bearest flowers within Thy hand, Thou wearest on Thy breast A flower; now tell me which of these "Should I not love my flowers, My flowers that bloom and pine, I love my lilies tall, My marigold with constant eyes, Each flower that blows, each flower that dies, To Me, I love them all. My roses fair and sweet; I hide within my breast the flower That grows beside my feet." Dora Greenwell. The love of a garden, like love itself, like charity, never fails. S. Reynolds Hole. The Gardens of the Poor People whose lives, and those of their parents before them, have been spent in dingy tenements, and whose only garden is a rickety soap-box high up on a fire-escape, share this love, which must have a plant to tend, with those whose gardens cover acres and whose plants have been gathered from all the countries of the world. How often in summer, when called to town, and when driving through the squalid streets to the ferries, or riding on the elevated road, one sees these gardens of the poor! Sometimes they are only a Geranium or two, or the gay Petunia. Often a tall Sunflower, or a Tomato plant red with fruit. These efforts tell of the love of the growing things, and of the care that makes them live and blossom against all odds. One feels a thrill of sympathy with the owners of the plants and wishes that some |