Phenix Gazette

On midsummer's eve (22d June.) which is
also the vigil of St. John the Baptist, according
to a custom common over Germany, every
young girl plucks a sprig of St. John's wort,
and sticks it into the wall of her chamber.
Should it, owing to the dampness of the wall,
retain its freshness and verdure, she may reckon
upon gaining a suitor in the course of the
year; but should it droop, the popular belief is,
that she is destined to pine and wither away.
The following version of some lines, from a
German Almanac, descriptive of this superstition, is beautiful:
The young maid stole from the cottage door,
And blushed, as she saw the plant of power;
Thou silver glowworm, oh! lend me thy light!
I must gather the mystic St. John's wort to-night,
The wonderful herb, whose leaf will decide
If the coming year shall make me a bride."
And the glowworm came
With its silvery flame,
And sparkled and shone.
Through the night of St. John.
And soon as the maiden her love-knot tied,
With noiseless tread
To her chamber she sped,
Where the spectral moon her white beams shed.
Bloom here, bloom here, thou plant of power,
To deck the young bride in her bridal hour.
But it drooped its head; that plant of power,
And died the death of the voiceless flower--
And a withered leaf on the ground it lay,
More meet for a burial than a bridal day;
And when a full year had flitted away.
All pale on her bier the young maid lay--
And the glowworm came
with its silvery flame,
And sparkled and shone
Through the night of St. John--
And they clos'd the cold grave o'er the maid's cold
clay.
The glowworm is denominated in German Johannis Würmchen--St. John's Worm.