"Nor much it grieves To die, when summer dies on the cold sward. Why, I have been a butterfly, a lord Of flowers, garlands, love-knots, silly posies, Groves, meadows, melodies, and arbor roses; My kingdom's at its death, and just it is That I should die with it." In the summer of 1816, under the influence of a happy day at Hampstead, he wrote that lovely poem, "I stood tiptoe upon a little hill." After a description of the general scene, a special corner of beauty is thus told:-- "A bush of May flowers with the bees about them-- Ah, sure no bashful nook could be without them-- And let a lush Laburnum oversweep them, And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them Moist, cool, and green; and shade the Violets That they may bind the moss in leafy nets. A Filbert hedge with Wild-brier over trim'd, And clumps of Woodbine taking the soft wind, Upon their summer thrones...." Then come these wonderful lines, which belittle all other descriptions of Sweet Peas:-- "Here are Sweet Peas, on tiptoe for a flight, With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white, And taper fingers catching at all things To bind them all about with tiny wings." Keats states in his letters that his love of flowers was wholly for those of the "common garden sort," not for flowers of the greenhouse or difficult cultivation, nor do I find in his lines any evidence of extended familiarity with English wild flowers. He certainly does not know the flowers of woods and fields as does Matthew Arnold. [Illustration: The Parson's Walk.] The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table says: "Did you ever hear a poet who did not talk flowers? Don't you think a poem which for the sake of being original should leave them out, would be like those verses where the letter _a_ or _e_, or some other, is omitted? No; they will bloom over and over again in poems as in the summer fields, to the end of time, always old and always new." The Autocrat himself knew well a poet who never talked flowers in his poems, a poet beloved of all other poets,--Arthur Hugh Clough,--though he loved and knew all flowers. From Matthew Arnold's beautiful tribute to him, are a few of his wonderful flower lines, cut out from their fellows:-- "Through the thick Corn the scarlet Poppies peep, And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see Pale blue Convolvulus in tendrils creep, And air-swept Lindens yield Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers Of bloom..., * * * * * "Soon will the high midsummer pomps come on, Soon will the Musk Carnations break and swell. Soon shall we have gold-dusted Snapdragon, Sweet-william with his homely cottage smell, And Stocks in fragrant blow."