FLOWERS OF SPRING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 103, 28 October 1939, Page 15

FLOWERS OF SPRING

Who does not love the flowers that bloom in the spring? The violets, snotodrops, daffodils are lovely heralds. However cold and rough the weather may be there are certain to be hyacinths filling our houses with fragrance at this time of the year. We love to see them by the window or on our table, and as we breathe their perfume' we think perhaps of the Greek story, of Hyacinth, son of, a Spartan king, who was killed by a quoit flung at his head, his blood springing up as a .flower. Tlie wild hyacinth from which our garden flowers are descended belongs to Greece and Asia Minor, the home also of the great narcissus _ family, •which includes the; daffodils. Again the Greeks, who ever loved a story, tell of- the beautiful Narcissus, the son of '■ a river god,; Echo fell in love with him. but he was so much in love with his own.reflection that he pined away while looking at himself in a stream, the spot where he died being the .birthplace of the first narcissi.

It would not be spring if there were

no daffodils, the daffodils that come before the Swallow dares, and take the winds of March with beauty. With their green spears and yellow stars and golden- trumpets, they are among the loveliest of all our flowers. Wordsworth rejoiced to see them fluttering and dancing in the breeze, and Herrick-wept to see them haste away so soon. VQnCe again the Greeks have a legend,'for they-used to say that daffodils were as '■ white as narcissi till Persephone bound therp round her head. The moment Pluto appeared to-catty-her down to the underworld the daffodils became yellow, and yellow they have ever since remained. 33ve& the crocuses of many colours may preach a.sermon with sweetest looks,-for there is -a legend (Longfellow reminds us of it) that Jesus,, as the King of Bethlehem, wears a yellow, crocus in His. diadem.

;The,f^y;qijeen v .'.S:.. (Original.) The woodland pools they made her eye 3, The deep sea pearls her teeth, Her lips were rosebuds round and firm, Her cheeks were clouds of heath. The golden moonbeams wove her hair, The thistledown her feet, Aidlv happiness and lovely thoughts Were all she had to eat. She is the lovely one we'knew, The idol of our childhood, - The friend of bird and beast and flower, She's Mab, Queen of the .Wildwood. —F.S. Lower Hutt.