The Folk-lore of Plants

"Wheresoe'er they move, before them Swarms the stinging fly, the Ahmo, Swarms the bee, the honey-maker; Wheresoe'er they tread, beneath them Springs a flower unknown among us, Springs the white man's foot in blossom." Between certain birds and plants there exists many curious traditions, as in the case of the nightingale and the rose. According to a piece of Persian folklore, whenever the rose is plucked, the nightingale utters a plaintive cry, because it cannot endure to see the object of its love injured. In a legend told by the Persian poet Attar, we are told how all the birds appeared before Solomon, and complained that they were unable to sleep from the nightly wailings of the nightingale. The bird, when questioned as to the truth of this statement, replied that his love for the rose was the cause of his grief. Hence this supposed love of the nightingale for the rose has been frequently the subject of poetical allusion. Lord Byron speaks of it in the "Giaour":-- "The rose o'er crag or vale, Sultana of the nightingale, The maid for whom his melody, His thousand songs are heard on high, Blooms blushing to her lover's tale, His queen, the garden queen, his rose, Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows." Thackeray, too, has given a pleasing rendering of this favourite legend:-- "Under the boughs I sat and listened still, I could not have my fill. 'How comes,' I said, 'such music to his bill? Tell me for whom he sings so beautiful a trill.'