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The happy bells shall ring Marguerite; The summer birds shall sing Marguerite; You smile but you shall wear Orange blossoms in your hair, Marguerite.

Sweet letters of the angel tongue, I've loved ye long and well, And never have failed in your fragrance sweet To find some secret spell,-- A charm that has bound me with witching power, For mine is the old belief, That midst your sweets and midst your bloom, There's a soul in every leaf!

As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks, who used to love them.

Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men and animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock.

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!

Thick on the woodland floor Gay company shall be, Primrose and Hyacinth And frail Anemone, Perennial Strawberry-bloom, Woodsorrel's pencilled veil, Dishevel'd Willow-weed And Orchis purple and pale.

I have loved flowers that fade, Within those magic tents Rich hues have marriage made With sweet unmemoried scents.

And lilies are still lilies, pulled By smutty hands, though spotted from their white.

Brazen helm of daffodillies, With a glitter toward the light. Purple violets for the mouth, Breathing perfumes west and south; And a sword of flashing lilies, Holden ready for the fight.

Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead. She wept tear after tear, with the blood which was shed,-- And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden-close; Her tears, to the wind-flower,--his blood, to the rose.

The flower-girl's prayer to buy roses and pinks, Held out in the smoke, like stars by day.

Yet here's eglantine, Here's ivy!--take them as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine. Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true, And tell thy soul their roots are left in mine.

Where fall the tears of love the rose appears, And where the ground is bright with friendship's tears, Forget-me-not, and violets, heavenly blue, Spring glittering with the cheerful drops like dew.

The windflower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the first from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland glade and glen.

Who that has loved knows not the tender tale Which flowers reveal, when lips are coy to tell? - Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,

Mourn, little harebells, o'er the lea; Ye stately foxgloves fair to see! Ye woodbines, hanging bonnilie In scented bowers! Ye roses on your thorny tree The first o' flow'rs.

Now blooms the lily by the bank, The primrose down the brae; The hawthorn's budding in the glen, The milkwhite is the slae.

The snowdrop and primrose our woodlands adorn, And violets bathe in the wet o' the morn.

Rose, what is become of thy delicate hue? And where is the violet's beautiful blue? Does aught of its sweetness the blossom beguile? That meadow, those daisies, why do they not smile?

Ye field flowers! the gardens eclipse you 'tis true: Yet wildings of nature, I dote upon you, For ye waft me to summers of old, When the earth teem'd around me with fairy delight, And when daisies and buttercups gladden'd my sight, Like treasures of silver and gold.