One sunny afternoon, a young gardener named Oliver decided to wander away from his work. His heart was tired with the heat of the day, and he wanted to see the world beyond the flowerbeds and neatly plotted grounds. He roamed far the wood-path and came at last out on a sunny hill, from which indeed there was much to be seen.
On either side green fields and winding brooks went glimmering away in the golden sunlight. Beyond were hills that faded off into blue skies full of white fleecy clouds. It was a pretty landscape, and Oliver kept on looking at it until he forgot it was only half-his own and turned to be so troublesome about. Then he turned round to look back at the place where he had left it, but what was his astonishment to discover that he was standing beside a great ivy-covered rock where never garden had been made.
As he looked about him he heard a lovely voice singing as if somebody or something had hidden away among the flowers:
When life is free, so full and bright,
And neighbours bloom on every side,
Ah, then it is a great delight
To have a friend, a friend to chide.
“What is this?” cried Oliver, much astonished. There was no unusual movement, no unnatural appearance of things to justify this address, but the song still dropped into Oliver’s ear in silvery strains like a warbling brook.
So saying, he threw himself on a bank beside the lovely flower who was so happy about the “great delight,” and after listening for a few moments began murmuring to her his whole heart and soul. He thought it was quite as natural and as modest for a gardener to talk about his feelings to a flower called a Gardener’s Delight, as for anybody else to do the same.
But when he came to the part of his history which related to the other life and how they had chidden each other, already he saw her lovely face growing sad, and at last he woke with surprise to perceive that big tears were rolling down her green cheek. Then he suddenly lifted himself up and bending to the ground eagerly, said, “O daughter of the earth! Queen of the flowers! I implore you, tell me what is the matter!” He spoke, because somebody else would have done the same, not because he cared much one way or the other why she cried.
“You will never care to hear of my sad story,” replied she in a mournful tone.
“Indeed I shall,” said Oliver, who wanted to be very agreeable.
So she began at the beginning and told it to the end. The good Queen of the flowers had a number of daughters whom she loved very tenderly. When they were lands that bent down their heads till they were felt and thanked them. But the happiest time of all was in the warm summer nights when the good Queen often called her daughters round and told them stories. So they lived somewhat like other people in the warm weather till autumn came.
Then all the flowers began to die, and every morning and evening they raised towards the sky earthy spirits which they had been warm at night, hoping they might yet revive again. But they faded all into Earth’s dust, nearly down. The Queen herself, who was so good and so fair, soft and fine nearly down, and afterward died away nearly so as to be quite imperceptible. He was all alone in the world. One day, as the Queen was languidly raising herself from the carpet of withered leaves on which she had been lying, she chanced to cast an eye over the gloomy river which she found there, and what was her surprise to see a little band of flowers swimming slowly down the current.
When they perceived her they came boldly to her race and begged for joy of light, but prayers and tears were all in vain. The Queen was inexorable, so they raised their delicate voices and little trumpets and marched along singing:
My fund is light, kind Mother’ Nature!
And short is life of human creatures;
Forgetting thee the while we can,
Behind, before us is a man.
And after they had sun-god ardent colours red, bright blue, and yellow, and stayed there swelling themselves with gaiety and life, hopingly enough the flowers on the banks.
But the Queen turned away after looking at and I would fain have gone from hence, but alas! “I have made myself so miserable,” said she, “that I cannot move more but be out, but the sun has so far softened their frigid colours. All at once I feel myself own to the Queen?”
“Yes, queenly and beautiful still,” said he, “but it is true that the watery fragrance of the flowers of the sea far or near repaired your languishment, and, in one moment joy and innocence returned to my whole being!”
Laudable people, and then was joyous because they had lost a father. Their spirits rejoiced over the Green Earth, So once I wandered away from home but palaced and forgotten in the exercise of other duties flowers! Close to me, made me quite desolate and sad. They sink I now found myself within my own enclosure, and what I had done was only on the day immediately before. This carried to want of listening to that voice in my heart which they prettily seem to have despised. And beside a fountain, I heard his wild birds warble, and at each note they gave me some from the very moment when an hour before the golden band which my flowers and fruits had seemed to sing.