The language of flowers The floral offering ; a token of affection and esteem ; comprising the language and poetry of flowers
As fast as they are made, forgotten as soon
As done.
_Shakspeare._
* * * * *
As through a valley remote I strayed,
Methought, beside a mouldering temple’s stone,
The tale of whose dark structure was unknown,
I saw the form of Time: his scythe’s huge blade
Lay swathed in the grass, whose gleam was seen
Fearful, as oft the wind, the tussocks green
Moved stirring to and fro: the beam of morn
Cast a dim lustre on his look forlorn;
When touching a responsive instrument,
Stern o’er the chords his furrowed brow he bent:
Meantime a naked boy, with aspect sweet,
Played smiling with the hour-glass at his feet!
Apart from these, and in a verdant glade,
A sleeping infant on the moss was laid,
O’er which a female form her vigils kept,
And watched it, softly-breathing as it slept.
Then I drew nigh, and to my listening ear
Came, stealing soft and slow, this ditty clear:
“Lullaby, sing lullaby,--
Sweetest babe, in safety lie;
I thy mother sit and sing,
Nor hear of Time the hurrying wing.
Here, where innocence reposes,
Fairy sylphs, your sports delay;
Then the breath of morning roses
From its bed of bliss convey.
Lullaby, sing lullaby,--
Sweetest babe, in safety lie;
I thy mother sit and sing,
Nor hear of Time the hurrying wing.”
_Bowles._
* * * * *
Relentless Time! that steals with silent tread,
Shall tear away the trophies of the dead.
Fame, on the pyramid’s aspiring top,
With sighs shall her recording trumpet drop;
The feeble characters of Glory’s hand
Shall perish, like the tracks upon the sand;
But not with these expire the sacred flame
Of virtue, or the good man’s awful name.
_Bowles._
* * * * *
O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o’er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet life’s peaceful evening with a smile--
As some lone bird, at day’s departing hour,
Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower
Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while:--
Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure,
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!
_Bowles._
COMMON THISTLE.... _Misanthropy_.
Who would seek or prize
Delights that end in aching?
Who would trust to ties
That every hour are breaking?
Better far to be
In utter darkness lying,
Than be blest with light, and see
That light for ever flying.
All that’s bright must fade,--
The brightest still the fleetest,
All that’s sweet was made
But to be lost when sweetest!
_Moore._
* * * * *
I had much rather see
A crested dragon or a basilisk,
Both are less poison to my eyes and nature.
_Dryden._
* * * * *
Hate all, curse all: show charity to none;
But let the famished flesh slide from the bone,
Ere thou relieve the beggar: give to dogs
What thou deniest to men; let prisons swallow them,
Debts wither them to nothing: be men like blasted woods,
And may diseases lick up their false bloods.
_Shakspeare._
* * * * *
I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind:
For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
That I might love thee something.
_Shakspeare._
* * * * *
I’ll keep my way alone, and burn away--
Evil or good I care not, so I spread
Tremendous desolation on my road:
I’ll be remembered as huge meteors are;
From the dismay they scatter.
_Proctor._
* * * * *
I see thou art implacable, more deaf
To prayers than winds and seas; yet winds and seas
Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore:
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages
Eternal tempest never to be calm.
_Milton._
* * * * *
Warped by the world in disappointment’s school.
In words too wise, in conduct there a fool;
Too firm to yield, and far too proud to stoop,
Doomed by his very virtues for a dupe,
He cursed those virtues as the cause of ill,
And not the traitors who betrayed him still;
Nor deemed that gifts bestowed on better men,
Had left him joy, and means to give again.
Feared, shunned, belied, ere youth had lost her force,
He hated men too much to feel remorse,
And thought the voice of wrath a sacred call,
To pay the injuries of some on all.
_Byron._
* * * * *
He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny, and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain;
Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn,
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.
_Shelley._
* * * * *
They too, who mid the scornful thoughts that dwell
In his rich fancy, tinging all its streams,
As if the Star of Bitterness which fell
On earth of old, and touched them with its beams,
Can track a spirit, which, though driven to hate,
From Nature’s hands came kind, affectionate;
And which, even now, struck as it is with blight,
Comes out, at times, in love’s own native light--
How gladly all, who’ve watched these struggling rays
Of a bright, ruined spirit through his lays,
Would here inquire, as from his own frank lips,
What desolating grief, what wrongs had driven
That noble nature into cold eclipse--
Like some fair orb, that, once a sun in heaven,
And born, not only to surprise, but cheer
With warmth and lustre all within its sphere,
Is now so quenched, that, of its grandeur, lasts
Naught but the wide cold shadow which it casts!
_Moore._
DEW PLANT.... _Serenade_.
Inesilla! I am here:
Thy own cavalier
Is now beneath thy lattice playing:
Why art thou delaying?
He hath ridden many a mile
But to see thy smile:
The young light on the flowers is shining,
Yet he is repining.
What to him is a summer star,
If his love’s afar?
What to him the flowers perfuming,
When his heart’s consuming?
Sweetest girl! why dost thou hide?
Beauty may abide
Even before the eye of morning,
And want no adorning.
Now, upon their paths of light,
Starry spirits bright
To catch thy brighter glance are staying:
Why art thou delaying?
_Barry Cornwall._
* * * * *
Listen! from the forest boughs
The voice-like angel of the spring
Utters his soft vows
To the proud rose blossoming.
And now beneath thy lattice dear!
I am like the bird complaining:
Thou above (I fear)
Like the rose disdaining.
From her chamber in the skies
Shouts the lark at break of morning,
And when day-light flies
Comes the raven’s warning.
This of gloom and that of mirth
In their mystic numbers tell;
But thoughts of sweeter birth
Teacheth the nightingale.
_Barry Cornwall._
PINE.... _Pity_.
Naught is there under Heaven’s wide hollowness
That moves more dear compassion of the mind
Than beauty brought to unworthy wretchedness
Through envy’s snares, or fortune’s freaks unkind:
I, whether lately through her brightness blind,
Or through allegiance and vast fealty,
Which I do owe unto all womankind,
Feel my heart pierced with so great agony,
When such I see, that all for pity I could die.
_Spenser._
* * * * *
Like Ariadne, when in pale despair
The Athenian left her,--so sad Eva pined,
And so she went complaining to the air,
And gave her tresses to the careless wind:--
The colour of her fate was on her mind,
Dark, death-like, and despairing;--and her eye
Shone lustrous, like the light of prophecy.
Over the grassy meads,--beside lone streams,
To perilous heights which no weak step could reach,
She wandered, feeding her unearthly dreams
With musing, and would move the tremulous beech
And shuddering aspen with imploring speech;
For nothing that did live, save they (who sighed)
Pitied the downfall of her amorous pride.
_Barry Cornwall._
* * * * *
Has Hope, like the bird in the story,
That flitted from tree to tree
With the talisman’s glittering glory--
Has Hope been that bird to thee?
On branch after branch alighting,
The gem did she still display,
And, when nearest and most inviting,
Then waft the fair gem away!
If thus the sweet hours have fleeted,
When Sorrow herself looked bright;
If thus the fond hope has cheated,
That led thee along so light;
If thus, too, the cold world wither
Each feeling that once was dear;--
Come, child of misfortune! come hither,
I’ll weep with thee, tear for tear.
_Moore._
* * * * *
The blind man groping cautiously his way
Along the crowded pavement of a city,
Has natural claims upon our tender pity.
Whether ’twere night, or whether it were day,
Would seem to make small difference to him
Whose days and nights alike are ever dim;
Yet still the tramp of human feet, and hum
Of human voices, sweetly fill his ear;
The surgings of the tides of life appear
Like the deep sounds that from the ocean come
At midnight to the listener. Pity’s glance
Upon his form instinctively we throw;
And while some sadness clouds our countenance,
To GOD we pray to save us from such wo.
_MacKellar._
* * * * *
Come, chase that starting tear away,
Ere mine to meet it springs;
To-night, at least, to-night be gay,
Whatever to-morrow brings!
Like sunset gleams, that linger late
When all is darkening fast,
Are hours like these we snatch from Fate--
The brightest and the last.
_Moore._
* * * * *
’Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh!
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o’er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
_Moore._
SAGE.... _Domestic Virtues_.
At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th’ expectant wee things, todlin stacher through