The Perforated St. John's Wort Is Now Coming Into Flower
Everywhere, And Will Continue Until Late In August; It Is An Upright
Plant, From One To Two Feet High, With Clusters Of Yellow Flowers.
The
Germans have a custom for maidens to gather this herb on the eve of St.
John, and from its withering or retaining its freshness to draw an augury
of death or marriage in the coming year.
This is well told in the
following lines: -
"The young maid stole through the cottage door,
And blushed as she sought the plant of power;
Then silver glow-worm, O lend me thy light,
I must gather the mystic St. John's Wort to-night,
The wonderful herb whose leaf must decide
If the coming year shall make me a bride.
And the glow-worm came
With its silvery flame,
And sparkled and shone
Through the night of St. John;
While it shone on the plant as it bloomed in its pride,
And soon has the young maid her love-knot tied.
With noiseless tread
To her chamber she sped,
Where the spectral moon her white beams shed.
"Bloom here, bloom here, thou plant of power,
To deck the young bride in her bridal hour;
But it dropped its head, the plant of power,
And died the mute death of the voiceless flower
And a withered wreath on the ground it lay,
And when a year had passed away,
All pale on her bier the young maid lay;
And the glow-worm came,
With its silvery flame,
And sparkled and shone
Through the night of St. John;
And they closed the cold grave o'er the maid's cold clay,
On the day that was meant for her bridal day."
Let us see what flowers sultry July has in store for us in her bountiful
cornucopia.
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