Next, in the discreet corner of the old families, are crowded the
long-leaved Veronica; the red Potentilla; the African Marigold; the
ancient Lychnis, or Maltese Cross; the Mournful Widow, or Purple
Scabious; the Foxglove, or Digitalis, who shoots up like a melancholy
rocket; the European Aquilegia, or Columbine; the Viscaria, who, on a
long, slim neck, lifts a small, ingenuous, quite round face to admire
the sky; the lurking Lunaria, who secretly manufactures the "Pope's
money," those pale, flat crown-pieces with which, no doubt, the elves
and fairies by moonlight carry on their trade in spells; lastly, the
Pheasant's Eye, the red Valerian, or Jupiter's Beard, the Sweet William
and the old Carnation, that was cultivated long ago by the Grand Condé
in his exile.
Besides these, above, all around, on the walls, in the hedges, among the
arbours, along the branches, like a people of sportive monkeys and
birds, the climbing plants make merry, perform feats of gymnastics, play
at swinging, at losing and recovering their balance, at falling, at
flying, at looking up at space, at reaching beyond the treetops to kiss
the sky. Here we have the Spanish Bean and the Sweet Pea, quite proud at
being no longer included among the vegetables; the modest Volubilis; the
Honeysuckle, whose scent represents the soul of the dew; the Clematis
and the Glycine; while, at the windows, between the white curtains,
along the stretched string, the Campanula, surnamed Pyramidalis, works
such miracles, throws out sheaves and twists garlands formed of a
thousand uniform flowers so prodigiously immaculate and transparent that
they who see it for the first time, refusing to believe their eyes, want
to touch with their finger the bluey marvel, cool as a fountain, pure as
a source, unreal as a dream.
Meanwhile, in a blaze of light, the great white Lily, the old lord of
the gardens, the only authentic prince among all the commonalty issuing
from the kitchen-garden, the ditches, the copses, the pools and the
moors, among the strangers come from none knows where, with his
invariable six-petalled chalice of silver, whose nobility dates back to
that of the gods themselves: the immemorial Lily raises his ancient
sceptre, august, inviolate, which creates around it a zone of chastity,
silence and light.
V
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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