A young lady--"herself a fairer
flower"--is rarely exhibited to a loving eye in a more delightful point of
view than when her delicate and dainty fingers are so employed.
If a lovely woman arranging the nosegays and flower-vases, in her
parlour, is a sweet living picture, a still sweeter sight does she
present to us when she is in the garden itself. Milton thus represents
the fair mother of the fair in the first garden:--
Eve separate he spies.
Veil'd in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood,
Half spied, so thick the roses blushing round
About her glow'd, oft stooping to support
Each flower of slender stalk, whose head, though gay,
Carnation, purple, azure, or speck'd with gold,
Hung drooping unsustain'd; them she upstays
Gently with myrtle band, mindless the while
Herself, though fairest unsupported flower,
From her best prop so far, and storm so nigh.
Nearer he drew, and many a walk traversed
Of stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm;
Then voluble and bold, now hid, now seen,
Among thick woven arborets, and flowers
Imborder'd on each bank, the hand of Eve[128]
_Paradise Lost. Book IX_.
Chaucer (in "The Knight's Tale,") describes Emily in her garden as
fairer to be seen
Than is the lily on his stalkie green;
And Dryden, in his modernized version of the old poet, says,
At every turn she made a little stand,
And thrust among the thorns her lily hand
To draw the rose.
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