Ye ardent marigolds!
Dry up the moisture from your golden lids,
For gteat Apollo bids
That in these days yoru praises should be sung
On manyharps, which he ahs lately strung;
And when again your dewiness he kisses,
Tell him, I have you in my world of blisses:
So haply when I rove in some far vale,
His mighty voice may come upn the gale.
John Keats, 1795-1821
The Marigold was always been associated with the sun's journey across the sky, from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon. The Victorians believed they could stet the clock by the hour the Marigold opened and closed its colorful petals.
The Marigold probably means Mary-gold after the Virgin Mary. In some parts the marigold is also known as Mary-bud and Mary-gold. Lots of children have been reminded of a button when looking at the big, round flower, and so called them Bachelor's Buttons, a name the marigold shares with several other memebers of the daisy family.
In the 19th century, the Marigold, representing the shining sun, became a symbol of life following its preordained path in the same way as the flower follows the sun.
Yet the Marigold, too, has another, opposite meaning: because of its strange smell, it is also known as the flower of the dead and is planed in graveyards. The Marigold signifies Grief, it is believed, because the flower daily mourns the departure of the sun when its petals are forced to close.
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