GERMANS AND THE SHAMROCK.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 26, 28 June 1900, Page 27

GERMANS AND THE SHAMROCK.

They have just been writing a good deal about the shamrock in the German press, but they have not been calling it the shamrock. The name they give it is the ' Kleeblatt, ' which really means clover-leaf. A writer in the German Catholic newspaper, the Kolnische Volkszeitung, who is evidently a lover of ' the Bweet little shamrock,' has been warmly protesting against the ignorance which confounds it with the ' Kleeblatt.' He explains the difference, and even shows a knowledge of the ancient tongue of the Gael by pointing out that shamrock iB really an Irish word. To prove that in the eyes of the Irish it is quite different from clover, he quotes the following lines from Ralph Varian's poem, ' The Shamrock,' in which the poet is represented ac looking for his darling plant in every season. He says in June . When scarlet poppies nod between The ears of wheat, yet sappy green, And trodden green sward breathing tells Of clover white with honey cells . . . I seek the shamrock's golden bells. The writer of the article insists on the shamrock being acclimatised in Germany ; that is on its being received into the German language. He declares : ' Just as the English have adopted the Irish plant with its Irish name, so must we Germans take it in its native purity. Shamrock then, and not Kleeblatt. 1