'Now, gentle flower, I pray thee tell
If my love loves, and loves me well;
So may the fall of the morning dew
Keep the sun from fading thy tender blue;
Now I remember the leaves for my lot--
He loves me not--he loves me--he loves me not--
He loves me! Yes, the last leaf--yes!
I'll pluck thee not for that last sweet guess;
He loves me!' 'Yes,' a dear voice sighed;
And her lover stands by Margaret's side."
Another mode of love-divination formerly much practised among the
lower orders was known as "peascod-wooing." The cook, when shelling
green peas, would, if she chanced to find a pod having nine, lay it on the
lintel of the kitchen-door, when the first man who happened to enter was
believed to be her future sweetheart; an allusion to which is thus given by Gay:
"As peascod once I pluck'd, I chanced to see
One that was closely fill'd with three times three,
Which, when I cropp'd, I safely home couvey'd,
And o'er the door the spell in secret laid.
The latch mov'd up, when who should first come in,
But, in his proper person, Lublerkin."
On the other hand, it was customary in the North of England to rub a
young woman with pease-straw should her lover prove unfaithful:
"If you meet a bonnie lassie,
Gie her a kiss and let her gae;
If you meet a dirty hussey,
Fie, gae rub her o'er wi' strae!"
From an old Spanish proverb it would seem that the rosemary has
long been considered as in some way connected with love:
"Who passeth by the rosemarie
And careth not to take a spraye,
For woman's love no care has he,
Nor shall he though he live for aye."
Of flowers and plants employed as love-charms on certain festivals
may be noticed the bay, rosebud, and the hempseed on St. Valentine's
Day, nuts on St. Mark's Eve, and the St. John's wort on Midsummer Eve.
In Denmark[1] many an anxious lover places the St. John's wort
between the beams under the roof for the purpose of divination, the