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Before that time the rose was but a stain,
The Lilly naught but paleness did contain;
You have the native colour;—these, they die,
And only florish in your livery!
How exquisitely graceful and melodious is this, yet straining even the wide licence of a poet's fancy.
The Pansy boasts a greater variety of aliases than most flowers; it is known as the Heartsease, Love-in-idleness, La Pensée, from which significant name we derive the word Pansy; and has also many rustic appellations, such as "a Kiss at the Garden Gate," "Pink o' my John," &c.
Although every flower which our divine Shakspeare has mentioned claims from us an immortality of love, yet the Pansy seems especially dedicated to him. Other Bards have written most sweet and dainty conceits about the blushing rose, and the fair lily, and the blue violet, and many another gentle bud and gorgeous blossom; but none have so entirely appropriated any to themselves as Shakspeare has "the Pansy freaked with jet." He has given the fable to the Flower; and a passage of more perfect poetical beauty cannot exist, than the scene where Oberon directs Puck to "fetch him this herb; but as it precedes my illustrative poem, I shall omit it here. How touchingly poor Ophelia mingles the Pansy in her gifts of token flowers: "There's Pansies—that's for thoughts!"
Herrick, in his usual quaint, fanciful way, gives a different account,
