SONGS OF FLOWERS. 203 FLOWERS. Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, Stars they are, wherein we read our history, Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, Bright and glorious is that revelation Written all over this great world of ours; Making evident our own creation, In these stars of earth, these golden flowers. And the poet, faithful and far-seeing, Sees alike in stars and flowers, a part Of the self-same, universal being, Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues, Theses in flowers and men are more than seeming; Which the poet in no idle dreaming, Seeth in himself and in the flowers. Everywhere about us are they glowing, Not alone in Spring's armorial bearings, Not alone in meadows and green alleys, Not on graves of birds and beasts alone, In the cottage of the rudest peasant, In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers, Speaking of the Past unto the Present, Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers. In all places, then, and in all seasons, Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings, And with childlike credulous affection, LONGFELLOW. A DREAM OF MAY FLOWERS. I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in a dream. There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, When the low wind its playmate's voice it hears. SONGS OF FLOWERS. And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cow-bind, and the moonlight-coloured May, And cherry-blossoms, and white-cups, whose wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day; And wild rose, and ivy serpentine, With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple, prankt with white, And starry river-buds among the sedge; And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which let the oak that overhung the hedge With moonlight beams of their own watery light; And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen. 205 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. FLOWERS. God might have bade the earth bring forth The oak-tree, and the cedar-tree, Without a flower at all. He might have made enough, enough, For luxury, medicine, and toil, And yet have made no flowers. The ore within the mountain-mine Nor doth it need the lotus-flower The clouds might give abundant rain, And the herb that keepeth life in man Then wherefore, wherefore were they made, All dyed with rainbow-light, All fashioned with supremest grace, Upspringing day and night. Springing in valleys green and low, Our outward life requires them not To comfort man, to whisper hope, MARY HOWITT. HOLY FLOWERS. Woe's me-how knowledge makes forlorn! Of their old growth, the holy flowers; Once musing in the woodland nook, Doctrine and miracle, whate'er We draw from books was treasured there. Faith, in the wild wood's tangled bound, A blessed heritage had found! And Charity and Hope were seen Now mouldering silently away, First, the lark, when she means to rejoice to cheer herself and those that hear her, she then quits the earth, and sings as she ascends higher into the air; and having ended her heavenly employment, grows then mute and sad to think she must descend to the dull earth, which she would not touch but for necessity. How do the blackbird and throssel, with their melodious voice, bid welcome to the cheerful spring, and in their fixed mouths warble forth such ditties as no art or instrument can reach to! Nay, the smaller birds also do the like in their particular seasons, as, namely, the laverock, the tit-lark, the little linnet, and the honest robin, who loves mankind both alive and dead. But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet loud music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind to think |