True,
Reached her kind hand the top rail through
To hand me dill, and fennel too,
And sprigs of caraway.
"And as I munched the spicy seeds,
I dimly felt that kindly deeds
That thus supply our present needs,
Though only gifts of pungent weeds,
Show true religion.
"And often now through sermon trite
And operatic singer's flight,
I long for that old friendly sight,
The hand with herbs of value light,
To help to pass the time."
Were the dill and "sweetest fennel" chosen Sabbath favorites for their
old-time virtues and powers?
"Vervain and dill
Hinder witches of their ill."
And of the charmed fennel Longfellow wrote:--
"The fennel with its yellow flowers
That, in an earlier age than ours,
Was gifted with the wondrous powers,
Lost vision to restore."
And traditions of mysterious powers, dream-influencing, spirit-exorcising,
virtue-awakening, health-giving properties, hung vaguely around the
southernwood and made it specially fit to be a Sabbath-day posy. These
traditions are softened by the influence of years into simply idealizing,
in the mind of every country-bred New Englander, the peculiar refreshing
scent of the southernwood as a typical Sabbath-day fragrance. Half a
century ago, the pretty feathery pale-green shrub grew in every country
door-yard, humble or great, throughout New England; and every church-going
woman picked a branch or spray of it when she left her home on Sabbath
morn.
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