"understanded of the people" out of gillyflower which comes from the ill-used Latin caryophillum, a clove. The soothing aromatic scent of the, say, July flower, be it Cheiranthus, Dianthus, or Matthiola, may have won for it its association with gentleness.
I confess I cannot see what thyme has to do with truth, unless we use the word to pun with, and agree with the Tyrwhitt and Trevelyan motto that "Tyme tryeth troth," about which there can be no manner of doubt.[1]
Miss Rossetti[2] sings sweetly enough—
"The lily has an air,
And the snowdrop a grace,
And the sweetpea a way,
And the heartsease a face;"
but I cannot accept Miss Yonge's[3] suggestion that it is probably to the very smiling face of this purple-capped gentleman that the flower owes its name of heartsease. I do not know why it was bestowed, unless from the supposed cardiac virtue of the plant; but it has a comfortable sound which might well commend the blossom to lovers if even they were unmindful of its significance as pansy—"that's for thoughts."[4]
Drayton has other plant-lore than that which is in the Eclogue and I will make up a bouquet of it now.
To "wear the willow" is still an expression indicative of the condition of one who has, in any sense, lost the object of his (or her) heart's best love. The fourth, Nymphal,[5] of the Muses Elysium opens with an inquiry referring to what was in earlier times no mere figure of speech—
"Why how now, Cloris, what thy head
Bound with forsaken willow."
