96 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAYES. 



of nature. From these lands, blessed witli exuberance and fertility, 

 this language has found its way to our own cold and cloudy shores, 

 having been brought hither by pilgrims, who have toiled across the 

 wide deserts, and through the fruitful valleys of the East, to pay 

 homage at the consecrated shrines of nations and temples which have 

 now no other existence than as fragments in the history of the past. 

 Of these floral symbols, some are of such a general character, and 

 they would be adopted and appreciated so readily by any people, that 

 it would be diificult to recognize them as individual facts. The 

 flower would ever be a type of all innocence and beauty. The lovely 

 hues and symmetrical forms which flowers display, would ever suggest 

 an aesthetical or ideal beauty pertaining only to the soul. Their brief 

 existence and decay would render them fit representatives of our own 

 fleeting lives. Literature abounds with metaphors and symbols of 

 this general character. Thus of Corinne, that warm-hearted daughter 

 of Italy, whose soul brimmed with passionate affection, as warm and 

 pure as the sunlight of her native skies, Madame de Stael writes : 

 " This lovely woman, whose features seemed designed to depict felicity 

 — this child of the sun, a prey to hidden grief — was like a flower, still 

 fresh and brilliant, but within whose leaves may be seen the first dark 

 impress of that withering blight which soon shall lay it low. . . . The 

 long black lashes veiled her languid eyes, and threw a shadow over 

 the tintless cheek." Beneath was written this line from the " Pastor 

 Fido:"— 



Scarcely can we say this was a rose. 



A similar passage occurs in a lament for Lady Jane Grey : — 



Thou didst die 

 Even as a flower beneath the summer ray, 

 In incensed beauty, and didst take thy way, 

 Even like its fragrance, up into the sky. 



J. W. Ord. 

 In such a tone of subdued eloquence does the sister of Sir Philip 

 Sydney mourn over the memory of her sainted and incomparable 

 brother. 



Break now your garlands, O ! ye shepherd lasses, 



Since the fair flower that them adorned is gone; 

 The flower that them adorned is gone to ashes ; 



Never again let lass put garland on : 

 Instead of garland, wear sad cypress now. 

 And bitter elder, broken from the bough. 



