owers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age.

* * * * *

O, Proserpina,
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou lett'st fall
From Dis's waggon! Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty, violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath, pale primroses,
That die unmarried ere they can behold
Great Phoebus in his strength,--a malady
Most incident to maids, bold oxlips and
The crown imperial, lilies of all kinds,
The flower de luce being one

Shakespeare here, as elsewhere, speaks of "_pale_ primroses." The poets
almost always allude to the primrose as a _pale_ and interesting
invalid. Milton tells us of

The yellow cowslip and the _pale_ primrose[060]

The poet in the manuscript of his _Lycidas_ had at first made the
primrose "_die unwedded_," which was a pretty close copy of Shakespeare.
Milton afterwards struck out the word "_unwedded_," and substituted the
word "_forsaken_." The reason why the primrose was said to "die
unmarried," is, according to Warton, because it grows in the shade
uncherished or unseen by the sun, who was supposed to be in love with
certain sorts of flowers. Ben Jonson, however, describes the primrose as
_a wedded lady_--"the Spring's own _Spouse_"--though she is certainly
more commonly regarded as the daughter of Spring not the wife. J
Fletcher gives her the true parentage:--

Primrose, first born child of Ver

There are some kinds of primroses, that are not _pale_. There is a
species in Scotland, which is of a deep purple. And even in England (in
some of the northern counties) there is a primrose, the bird's-eye
primrose, (Primula farinosa,) of which the blossom is lilac colored and
the leaves musk-scented.

In Sweden they call the Primrose _The key of May_.

The primrose is always a great favorite with imaginative and sensitive
observers, but there are too many people who look upon the beautiful
with a utilitarian eye, or like Wordsworth's Peter Bell regard it with
perfect indifference.

A primrose by the river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him.
And it was nothing more.

I have already given one anecdote of a utilitarian; but I may as well
give two more anecdotes of a similar character. Mrs. Wordsworth was in a
grove, listening to the cooing of the stock-doves,