Flora's Lexicon/Amaranth
MARANTH. Amaranthus, Class 21, Monæia. Order: Penrandria. The amaranth is one of the latest gifts of autumn, and when dead its flowers retain their rich scarlet colour. The ancients have associated it with supreme honours; choosing it to adorn the brows of their gods. Poets have sometimes mingled its bright hue with the dark and gloomy cypress, wishing to express that their sorrows were combined with everlasting recollections. Homer tells us, that at the funeral of Achilles, the Thessalians presented themselves wearing crowns of amaranth.
IMMORTALITY.
Milton, in his gorgeous description of the court of heaven, mentions the amaranth as being inwoven in the diadems of angels—
With solemn adoration down they castTheir crowns, inwove with amaranth and gold;Immortal amaranth, a flower which onceIn Paradise, fast by the tree of life,Began to bloom; but soon for man’s offenceTo heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life,And where the river of bliss through midst of heavenRolls o’er Elysian flowers her amber stream,With those that never fade.
Pope mentions this flower in his Ode for St. Cecilia’s day; imagining it to be found in celestial bowers;—
By the streams that ever flow,By the fragrant winds that blow O’er the Elysian flowers;By those happy souls that dwellIn yellow meads of asphodel, Or amaranthine bowers.