IXA FEAST OF WILD STRAWBERRIES

There’s many a child has crowned her head with Buttercups—no bad substitute for gold—mirrored her face in a pool, and dreamed she was a Queen. There’s many a boy has lain for hours in the Wild Thyme on a cliff top and sent dream-fleets to Spain. The touch of imagination is all that is required to make the world seem real, and not until that wand is used is the world real. Only those moments when we hear the stars, peer in through Heaven’s gates, or rub shoulders with a poet’s vision, are real and substantial; the rest is only dreamland, vague, unsatisfactory. Huddled rows of dingy houses, smoke, grime, roar of traffic, scramble for the pence that make the difference, these things are not abiding thoughts—“Here there is no abiding city”—but those great moments when we grow as the flowers grow, sing as the birds sing, and feel at ease with the furthest stars, those are the moments we live in and remember. Our great garden may hold our thoughts if we wish. When we own England with our eyes, when all the fields and woods, the mountain streams, the pools and rills, rivers and ponds, are ours; when we are on our own ground with Ling and Broom, Heather, Heath and Furze for our carpet; when Harebells ring our matin’s bell and Speedwell close the day for us; when the Water-lily is our cup, broad leaves of Dock our platter, and King-cupsour array—how vast!—of gold plate, then are we kings indeed.

PATCHES OF HEATHER.

I’ll give you joy of all your hot-house fruit, if you’ll leave me to my Wild Strawberries. I’ll wish you pleasure of Signor What’s-his-name, the violin player, if you’ll but listen to my choir of thrushes. What do you care to eat? Here’s nothing over substantial, I’ll admit; but there’s good wine in the brook, and food for a day in the fields and hedges. Nuts, Blackberries, Wortleberries, Wild Raspberries, Mushrooms, Crabs and Sloes, and Samphire for preserving; Elderberries to make into a cordial; and Wild Strawberries, that’s my chiefest dish at this season—food for princesses.

Come to the cliffs with your leaf of Wild Strawberries, and I can show you blue Flax, and Sea Pinks, yellow Sea-Cabbage, and Sea Convolvulus, and Golden Samphire; you shall have Sandwort, and Viper’s Bugloss, and Ploughman’s Spikenard, and Horned Poppies, and Thyme, in plenty. We will choose a fanciful flower for the table, the yellow Elecampane that gave a cosmetic to Helen of Troy. And the mention of her who set Olympus and Earth in a blaze of discord makes me remember how Hermes, of the golden wand, gave to Odysseus the plant he had plucked from the ground, black at the root, and with a flower like to milk—“Moly the Gods call it, but it is hard for mortal men to dig; howbeit with the Gods all things are possible.”

Any manner of imaginings may come to those who make a feast of Wild Strawberries. We may follow our Classic idea and discuss the Hydromel, or cider of the Greeks; the syrup of squills they drank to aid their digestion, or the absinthe they took to promote appetite. We might even try to make one of their sweet wines of Rose leaves and honey, such a thing would go wellwith our Wild Strawberries. These things might all come out of our country garden and give us a ghostly Greek flavour for our pains. There were Wild Strawberries, I think, on Mount Ida where Paris was shepherd, whence they fetched him when Discord threw the Golden Apple.

It is almost impossible to reach out a hand and pick a flower without plucking a legend with it.

I had taken, I thought, England for my garden, and Wild Strawberries for my dish, but I find that I have taken the world for my flower patch, and am sitting to eat with ancient Greeks. Let me but pick the Pansy by my hand and I find that Spenser plucked its fellow years ago:

“Strew me the ground with Daffe-down-dillies,And Cowslips, and King-cups, and loved Lilies,The pretty Paunce (that is my wild Pansy)The ChevisaunceShall watch with the fayre Fleur de Luce.”

“Strew me the ground with Daffe-down-dillies,

And Cowslips, and King-cups, and loved Lilies,

The pretty Paunce (that is my wild Pansy)

The Chevisaunce

Shall watch with the fayre Fleur de Luce.”

And you may call it Phœbus’-paramour, or Herb-Trinity, or Three Faces-under-a-Hood.

To our forefathers the fields, lanes, and gardens were a newspaper far more valuable than the modern sheet in which we read news of no importance day by day. To them the blossoming of the Sloe meant the time for sowing barley; the bursting of Alder buds that eels had left their winter holes and might be caught. The Wood Sorrel and the cuckoo came together; when Wild Wallflower is out bees are on the wing, and linnets have learnt their spring songs. Water Plantain is supposed to cure a mad dog, and is a remedy against the poison of a rattlesnake; ointment of Cowslips removes sunburn and freckles; the Self-heal is good against cuts, and so is called also, Carpenter’s Herb, Hook-heal, and Sicklewort. Yellow Water-lilies will drive cockroachesand crickets from a house. Most charming intelligence of all deals with the Wild Canterbury Bell, in which the little wild bees go to sleep, loving their silky comfort. These are but a few paragraphs from our news-sheet, but they serve to show how pleasant a paper it is to know—and it costs nothing but a pair of loving and careful eyes.

If we choose to be more fanciful—and who is not, in a wild garden with a dish of Wild Strawberries?—we shall find ourselves filling Acorn cups with dew to drink to the fairies, and wondering how the thigh of a honey-bee might taste. Herrick is the poet for such flights of thought. His songs—“To Daisies, not to shut so soon.” “To Primroses filled with Morning Dew,” and, for this instance, to

THE BAG OF THE BEE

About the sweet bag of a beeTwo Cupids fell at odds;And whose the pretty prize should beThey vowed to ask the Gods.Which Venus hearing, thither cameAnd for their boldness stripped them;And taking thence from each his flameWith rods of Myrtle whipped them.Which done, to still their wanton cries,When quiet grown she’s seen them,She kissed and wiped their dove-like eyes,And gave the bag between them.

About the sweet bag of a beeTwo Cupids fell at odds;And whose the pretty prize should beThey vowed to ask the Gods.

About the sweet bag of a bee

Two Cupids fell at odds;

And whose the pretty prize should be

They vowed to ask the Gods.

Which Venus hearing, thither cameAnd for their boldness stripped them;And taking thence from each his flameWith rods of Myrtle whipped them.

Which Venus hearing, thither came

And for their boldness stripped them;

And taking thence from each his flame

With rods of Myrtle whipped them.

Which done, to still their wanton cries,When quiet grown she’s seen them,She kissed and wiped their dove-like eyes,And gave the bag between them.

Which done, to still their wanton cries,

When quiet grown she’s seen them,

She kissed and wiped their dove-like eyes,

And gave the bag between them.

We can do no better than give thanks for all our garden, our house, and our well-being in the words of the same poet. For we need to thank, somehow, for all the joys Nature gives us. Though, inthis poem, he names no flowers, yet his poems are full of them:

“—That I, poor I,May think, thereby,I live and die’Mongst Roses.”

“—That I, poor I,

May think, thereby,

I live and die

’Mongst Roses.”

Every man who is a gardener at heart, whether he be in love with the flowers of the open fields, the garden of the highways and the woods, or with his protected patch of ground, will care to know this song of Herrick’s if he has not already found it for himself:

A THANKSGIVING TO GOD FOR HIS HOUSE

Lord, thou hast given me a cell,Wherein to dwell;A little house, whose humble roofIs waterproof;Under the spars of which I lieBoth soft and dry;Where thou, my chamber for to ward,Hast set a guardOf harmless thoughts, to watch and keepMe, while I sleep.Low is my porch, as is my fate;Both void of state;And yet the threshold of my doorIs worn by th’ poor,Who thither come, and freely getGood words or meat.Like as my parlour, so my hallAnd kitchen’s small;A little buttery, and thereinA little bin,Which keeps my little loaf of breadUnchipt, unflead;Some brittle sticks of Thorn or BriarMake me a fireClose by whose living coal I sit,And glow like it.Lord, I confess too, when I dine,The Pulse is thine.And all those other bits that beThere placed by Thee;The Worts, the Purslain, and the messOf Watercress,Which of thy kindness thou hast sent;And my contentMakes those, and my beloved Beet,To be more sweet.’Tis thou that crown’st my glittering hearth,With guiltless mirth,And giv’st me wassail bowls to drink,Spiced to the brink.Lord, ’tis thy plenty-dropping handThat soils my land,And giv’st me, for my bushel sown,Twice ten for one;Thou mak’st my teeming hen to layHer egg each day;Besides, my healthful ewes to bearMe twins each year;The while the conduits of my kineRun cream, for wine;All these, and better, thou dost sendMe, to this end—That I should render, for my part,A thankful heart;Which, fired with incense, I resign,As wholly thine;—But the acceptance, that must be,My Christ, by Thee.

Lord, thou hast given me a cell,

Wherein to dwell;

A little house, whose humble roof

Is waterproof;

Under the spars of which I lie

Both soft and dry;

Where thou, my chamber for to ward,

Hast set a guard

Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep

Me, while I sleep.

Low is my porch, as is my fate;

Both void of state;

And yet the threshold of my door

Is worn by th’ poor,

Who thither come, and freely get

Good words or meat.

Like as my parlour, so my hall

And kitchen’s small;

A little buttery, and therein

A little bin,

Which keeps my little loaf of bread

Unchipt, unflead;

Some brittle sticks of Thorn or Briar

Make me a fire

Close by whose living coal I sit,

And glow like it.

Lord, I confess too, when I dine,

The Pulse is thine.

And all those other bits that be

There placed by Thee;

The Worts, the Purslain, and the mess

Of Watercress,

Which of thy kindness thou hast sent;

And my content

Makes those, and my beloved Beet,

To be more sweet.

’Tis thou that crown’st my glittering hearth,

With guiltless mirth,

And giv’st me wassail bowls to drink,

Spiced to the brink.

Lord, ’tis thy plenty-dropping hand

That soils my land,

And giv’st me, for my bushel sown,

Twice ten for one;

Thou mak’st my teeming hen to lay

Her egg each day;

Besides, my healthful ewes to bear

Me twins each year;

The while the conduits of my kine

Run cream, for wine;

All these, and better, thou dost send

Me, to this end—

That I should render, for my part,

A thankful heart;

Which, fired with incense, I resign,

As wholly thine;

—But the acceptance, that must be,

My Christ, by Thee.

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