The Book of Herbs

The wyfe of Bath was so wery, she had no wyl to walk; She toke the Priores by the honde, “Madam, wol ye stalk Pryvely into the garden to se the herbis growe?” . . . And forth on...

Now will I weave white violets, daffodils, With myrtle spray, And lily bells that trembling laughter fills, And the sweet crocus gay, With these blue hyacinth and the lover’s ro...

Herbs, too, she knew, and well of each could speak That in her garden sip’d the silv’ry dew; Where no vain flow’r disclos’d a gaudy streak; But herbs for use, and physic, not a...

Here may’st thou range the goodly, pleasant field, And search out simples to procure thy heal, What sundry virtues, sundry herbs do yield, ’Gainst grief which may thy sheep or t...

When bright Aurora gilds the eastern skies, I wake and from my squalid couch arise... Be this my topic, this my aim and end, Heav’n’s will to obey and seek t’oblige a friend......

In March and in April, from morning to night, In sowing and setting, good housewives delight; To have in a garden or other like plot, To trim up their house, and to furnish thei...

Names that one hardly expects to find grouped together, and especially not under this heading. The vegetable world, however, has attracted writers since the earliest times, and...