Nobody seemed to claim the marigold.

And while they cut tall marigolds from their stem And sworded bulrush, Hylas slipt from them.

See how the earth this fragrant spring is clad, And mantled round in sweet nymph Flora's robes: Here grows th'alluring rose, sweet marigolds And the lovely hyacinth.

The centuries fight such,now with a Titian, a Michel Angelo; now with a great philanthropist, who is also peaceable and easy to be entreated; now with a Florence Nightingale, knowing no sect; now with a little child by a roadside, holding up a marigold in the sun; now with a sweet-faced old woman, dying gracefully in some almshouse.

Mark how the bashful morn in vain Courts the amorous marigold With sighing blasts, and weeping rain; Yet she refuses to unfold.

If I went into the gardens, clinking the wicket latch loudly after me, to pull the marigolds, heartsease, and lady's-slippers, and draw a drink with the water-sodden well-bucket and its noisy chain; or, knocking off with my stick the tall, heavy-headed dahlias and sunflowers, hunting among the beds for cucumbers and love-applesno one called out to me from any opened window; no dog sprang forward to bark an alarm.

"And coverlids gold-tinted like the peach, Or ripe October's faded marigolds, Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds.

"When I think of Cobhurst," she wrote to her brother, "I smell marigolds, and think of rather poor blackberries that you pick from bushes.