THE POETRY OF FLOWERS.

By H. G. Adams.

THE ANEMONE, OR WIND FLOWER-ANEMone.

THE name of this plant, whose pearly blossoms, tinged and streaked with purple, are seen carpeting our woodlands most thickly about the latter end of March, and all through the month of April, is derived from the Greek word Anemos, (wind); hence we sometimes term it the Wind-flower; the French say l'herbe au vent (wind herb); and it is said to have obtained these names both from flowering in a windy season, and in an exposed situation. Eusden has thus rendered Ovid's allusion to it :

"So sudden fades the sweet Anemone,
The feeble stems to stormy winds a prey,
Their sickly beauties droop and pine away.
The winds forbid the flowers to flourish long,

Which owe to winds their name in Grecian song."

Pliny says, and after him Gerard, that this flower never opens its petals but when the wind blows, and it is this idea which Darwin, in his "Botanic Garden," and in his usual flowery style, thus expands :

"All wan and shivering in the leafless glade

The sad Anemone reclines her head ;

Breathe, gentle air! thy balmy influence;

Thou whose soft voice calls forth the tender blooms,
Whose pencil paints them and whose breath perfumes.
To her fond prayer propitious Zephyr yields,

Sweeps on his gliding shell through azure fields,
O'er her fair mansion waves his whispering wand,
And gives her ivory petals to expand."

Many other of the modern poets have made allusion to the supposed connection between the wind and this fair and delicate flower, but they do not quite agree in the assigned relationship. Bidlake calls it

"Anemone child of the wind;"

Thompson speaks of Anemonies,

"On the soft wing of vernal breezes shed,"

And Horace Smith, in his "Amaranthus," describes

"The coy Anemone that ne'er uncloses

Her lips, until they're blown on by the wind;"

Hence it has been said that the Anemone is emblematical of coyness, and also of anticipation, or expected pleasure,—

"And here I wait the breathing of the wind."

But, according to a very poetical legend, the gentle wooer for whom she had kept her beauties hidden and unspotted, proves unfaithful, and she, like many a human flower, is left to lament her too credulous fondness; and thus it has come to pass that in "a Dictionary of the Language of Flowers," we find that Anemone signifies forsaken. "She was," says the legend, "a nymph beloved by Zephyr, whom Flora, jealous of her charms, banished from her court, and transformed into a flower, that blows before the return of spring.

Zephyr has abandoned the unhappy beauty to the caresses of Boreas, who unable to gain her love, harshly shakes her, half opens her blossoms, and causes her immediately to fade." The same authority from which this is quoted, tells us also that " an Anemone, with the words Brevis est usus-her reign is shortis admirably expressive of the transitory nature of beauty," and, he might well have added, of the evanescence of youth also, and have called to mind the words of the Persian poet, as translated by Sir William Jones :

"Youth, like a thin Anemone, displays

Its silken leaf and in a hour decays."

Or Alaric Watts's rendering from the Arabic:—

"The Anemone is a lovely flower, but frail and perishing as the forms that people the day-dreams of Fancy. The wind wringeth it from the stem, and quickly whirleth it on high."

The author of "Flora Domestica" had only met with one poetical allusion to the fragility of the Anemone, which is that above given, from the Persian; we, however, could quote a dozen such allusions, if our space permitted: does not Lady E. S. Wortley tells us how

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the frail Anemone's meek flower Looks meet to grace a farie's favorite bower?"

And E. Elliott, too, does he not call it—

"Courageous wind-flower, frailest of the frail."

But we scarcely think that the Anemonies are quite so fragile

as all this would seem to imply; rather are we inclined to coincide with Mason, and, classing them with the other hardy flowers of Spring, say they belong to—

"The veteran troop who will not for a blast

Of nipping air, like cowards, quit the field."

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For year after year do they spring up, during the most stormy and inclement weather, and flutter their silken petals in the moist woodlands, and in the hedgerow banks, as though rejoicing to be wooed by the boisterous winds. Elliott's term courageous" is a good one, and here, by the way, we may remark that this is a favorite flower with him, as is evidenced by the frequent allusions made to it in his poems; he cannot miss it from his daily walks without asking in sorrow

"Where is the wind-flower with its modest cheek?"

And, looking upon the decay of this, and the other early blossoms of the spring, as warnings and precursors of his own final departure, he says-see "Village Patriarch"

"Flowers of the wintry beam, and faithless sky!
Gems of the withered bank and shadeless grove!
Ye are where he that mourns you soon must lie,
Beneath the shroud ye slumber-tranquilly."

The Anemone has also been made the emblem of sickness, no doubt from the circumstance of its being a poisonous flower, although Phillips gives us two other reasons for this similitude; the one from its having been anciently worn as a charm against disease (should it not rather, therefore, be considered as emblematic of health?); and the other in allusion to the fate of Adonis, who being killed by a boar, while hunting, was changed by Venus into this flower; or as some authorities have it, the tears which the goddess of love and beauty mingled with the blood of the slain huntsman gave birth to—

"Anemonies, now robed in virgin white,
Now blushing in faint crimson."

As Gisborne describes them. The French poet, Rapin, and our own Cowley, following Ovid, give also this origin to the flower, while the Spanish poet, Gracilasso, merely makes the blood of Adonis change the color of the flowers, and not originate them,—

"The white Anemonies that near him blew

Felt his red blood, and red for ever grew."

Of the versions of the fabled transformation given by the Camoens, Shakespere, Claudian, Bion, &c., we shall perhaps have more to say when we come to treat of the Hepatica, a species of Anemone, or the Flos Adonis, or Pheasants Eye, which is by many supposed to be the flower alluded to in their poetic fictions. In preference to using any more quotations with which many of our readers may be already acquainted, we will conclude this paper with some original lines.

On Plucking a Bunch of Anemonies.

In a green lane I found them-
These fair Anemonies!
Rank nettles sprang around them,
They trembled in the breeze;
'Twas on an April morning,

When forth I wandered early,
The clouds of rain gave warning,
All dark, and sombre grey,
And, where they broke away,
Shewed patches blue and pearly.
Within a coppice near me

The "golden-bill" was singing
Those songs that ever cheer me;
The lark o'er head was winging
His flight, the while outpouring
Such notes of liquid gladness
'Twas like a spirit soaring

From earth, to that bright home
Where grief may never come,
For aught of fear, nor sadness.

I gazed, with feelings mingled,
Upon those trembling flowers,
Then two or three I singled,

And bore them from their bowers :
I said "Oh, gentle creatures,
How quickly will ye perish;

The beautiful of Nature's-
The fair, the pure, the true,
All pass away like you-
Yea, all things that we cherish!
"Ye were as children holy

Amid the stinging nettles,
Upon whose pathways lowly

The dove of peace e'er settles;
And they, like men ill-minded,
Gazed on your budding graces,
By sordid passions blended,

And watched, and thought it long,
Ere ye, inured to wrong,
Should walk in sinful places.

NO. IX.

VOL. I.

"The breeze that made ye tremble,
The clouds that gathered o'er ye,
The warnings did resemble

Of dangers spread before ye;
The blackbird near ye singing,

The lark o'er head that chaunted,
Were friends who marked ye springing
And growing day by day,
More lovely every way,
And of your beauty vaunted.
"Alas! ye'r drooping dying,
No power can revive ye,
And I, above ye sighing,

Mourn that I did deprive thee
Of all that made ye flourish―

The balmy showers, the breezes,
And dews the roots that nourish;

Ah, man hath little care,
Destroying whatsoe'er
His vagrant fancy pleases!"

H. G. A.

THE WHITE VIOLETS.

A Narrative of Saint Valentine's Day.

COMMUNICATED BY THE POSTMISTRESS OF THORNBOROUGH, IN WILTS.

(See Note.)

ANGELA Affman and Emmy Bright were neighbours and had been schoolfellows. Both were pretty girls and both clever. Angela" could read French, but did'nt speak it," painted Moguls on rice-paper, executed little dogs in Berlin wool-and was great in the glass eyes, stretched ten notes on her mamma's "five and a half octave" piano, wrote poetry almost as well as the Reverend Vital Spark, their good Curate, and knew all the Latin names for the wild flowers. Emmy's talent lay in a different direction : she could make a shirt with the proper complement of buttons, had an infallible remedy for the ear-ache, made punch like an angel, always spoke her own language, and had a predilection for pets-keeping-not a gazelle-a goat-a greyhound—a cat -or even a canary-but a hedgehog! Angela was dark, Emmy, fair: Angela's eyes were flashing, Emmy's, fond: Angela generally wore low and long dresses-patronizing " Crino

Note. It is no use writing to Colonel Maberly. The Drawing-room Magazine is under the especial protection of the Government.-EDITOR D. R. M.