has been made fragrant and furnished with a little drop of honey. Insects, thus attracted, jar the pollen grains off, bend the flower by their weight, and send the pollen down the roadway leading to the ovary. They often, too, bring pollen from other flags, which is still better.

The young botanists will learn that their wild flag is also called the iris and the flower-de-luce, that is the flower of Louis. In 1137 King Louis VII made this the national flower of France.

These facts are from the prose of the flower, but

"These, and far more than these,
The poet sees."

Now let us study the flower as Mr. Longfellow saw it when he wrote his beautiful poem, “The Flower-de-Luce."

Reading it all through, one sees it is an address to the flower, not something written about it. So the poet at once takes the flower into his own world of consciousness and talks to it; already we are nearer the flower.

"Beautiful lily," he begins, and you remember you have learned it is not really a lily although often called so.

Then he describes its home, "by still rivers," "by solitary mere," or where some meadow brook gathers a tributary for the mill-race. Yes, the last is just the place where you found your blossoms.

And while the poet sees the great mill-wheel toiling "amid the rushing of the flume," and gathering from the water a force which, midst din and whir, sets spindle and loom to producing fabrics of beauty for us to wear, he sees the flower laughing at the mill.

"Born in the purple, born to joy and pleasance," without sound or effort it gathers from the same stream materials which it weaves into far more delicate fabrics than any mill can produce. Then the sword-like leaves and tall rushes draw the poet's attention.

The wind has lifted a banner-like sepal of the flower, and quickly the rushes press around it while, in his steel-blue armor, the burnished dragon-fly, like the squire of some lordly knight, darts to its side. This is a picture of feudal times, when most of the people were servants to great lords to whose banners they flocked whenever this was displayed. Sometimes the noble knight was served by a band of outlaws forbidden to appear in public places.

Such a picture as this Longfellow thought of when he called the shade-loving rushes outlaws of the sun, pressing about their leader, the flower-deluce. Is there not something military in their straight, compact, uniform ranks?

And then the poet, remembering their name, iris, recalls the legend which tells how Juno, the goddess of the air and the clouds, caused this plant to

spring up in honor of Iris, her beautiful maid. Iris was Juno's trusted messenger whom she sent on errands between the sky and earth. She poured out the refreshing rain and sometimes revealed herself to man for a few moments in the rainbow.

Thus in very early days people explained the rain, the rainbow, and the iris flower. We may think of this legend whenever we use the word iris, whether we refer to the flower, the colored ring in the eye, or the rainbow-tinted plumage of a dove.

Thus, speaking more lovingly and ever more reverently to the flower, the poet says, "Thou art the Muse," thinking still of the times so long ago in the childhood of the world when beings called muses were thought to live beside the brooks.

Their wondrous melodies played on simple reed pipes were thought to bring to men those thoughts and feelings which they, in turn, gave to the world in poetry. True poetry is so beautiful that it seems quite reasonable to think that poets have learned to write by the margin of some inspiring stream. As the flower-de-luce said so much to Mr. Longfellow, we delight in saying with him—

66 bloom on and make forever

The world more fair and sweet."

We cannot help thanking Mr. Longfellow too for showing us so much in this lovely blossom. Will it not mean more to us now?

WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID.

Vogelweid the Minnesinger,
When he left this world of ours,
Laid his body in the cloister,

Under Würzburg's minster towers.

And he gave the monks his treasures,
Gave them all with this behest;
They should feed the birds at noontide
Daily on his place of rest;

Saying, "From these wandering minstrels
I have learned the art of song;

Let me now repay the lessons

They have taught so well and long."

Thus the bard of love departed,

And fulfilling his desire,

On his tomb the birds were feasted
By the children of the choir.

Day by day o'er tower and turret,
In foul weather and in fair,
Day by day, in vaster numbers,
Flocked the poets of the air.

On the tree whose heavy branches
Overshadowed all the place,

On the pavement, on the tombstone,
On the poet's sculptured face,

On the cross-bars of each window,
On the lintel of each door,
They renewed the War of Wartburg,
Which the bard had fought before.

There they sang their merry carols,
Sang their lauds on every side;
And the name their voices uttered
Was the name of Vogelweid.

Till at length the portly abbot Murmured, "why this waste of food? Be it changed to loaves henceforward For our fasting brotherhood."

Then in vain o'er tower and turret, From the walls and woodland nests, While the minster bells rang noontide, Gathered the unwelcome guests.

Then in vain, with cries discordant,
Clamorous round the Gothic spire
Screamed the feathered Minnesingers
For the children of the choir.

Time has long effaced the inscriptions On the cloister's funeral stones,

And tradition only tells us

Where repose the poet's bones.