hen he sets
The same look which she did when he rose."

It was the Heliotrope or Solsequium or Turnesol of our forefathers, and
is the flower often alluded to under that name.[158:1] "All yellow
flowers," says St. Francis de Sales, "and, above all, those that the
Greeks call Heliotrope, and we call Sunflower, not only rejoice at the
sight of the sun, but follow with loving fidelity the attraction of its
rays, gazing at the sun, and turning towards it from its rising to its
setting" ("Divine Love," Mulholland's translation).

Of this higher and more religious use of the emblematic flower there are
frequent examples. I will only give one from G. Withers, a contemporary
of Shakespeare's later life--

"When with a serious musing I behold
The grateful and obsequious Marigold,
How duly every morning she displays
Her open breast when Phoebus spreads his rays;
How she observes him in his daily walk,
Still bending towards him her small slender stalk;
How when he down declines she droops and mourns,
Bedewed, as 'twere, with tears till he returns;
And how she veils her flowers when he is gone.
When this I meditate, methinks the flowers
Have spirits far more generous than ours,
And give us fair examples to despise
The servile fawnings and idolatries
Wherewith we court these earthly things below,
Which merit not the service we bestow."

From the time of Withers the poets treated the Marigold very much as the
gardeners did--they passed it by altogether as beneath their notice.

FOOTNOTES:

[157:1]

"That werud of yolo Guldes a garland."

_The Knightes Tale._

[157:2]

"You the Sun to her must play,
She to you the Marigold,
To none but you her leaves unfold."

MIDDLETON AND ROWLEY, _The Spanish Gipsy_.

See also Thynne's "Emblems," No. 18; and Cutwode's "Caltha Poetarum,"
1599, st. 18, 19.

[158:1] "Solsequium vel heliotropium; Solsece vel sigel-hwerfe" (_i.e._,
sun-seeker or sun-turner).--AELFRIC'S _Vocabulary_.

"Marigolde; solsequium, sponsa solis."--_Catholicon Anglicum._

In a note Mr. Herttage says, "the oldest name for the plant was
_ymbglidegold_, that which moves round with the sun."

MARJORAM.

(1) _Perdita._

Here's flowers for you;
Hot Lavender, Mints, Savory, Marjoram.