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FLORAL ANTIQUITIES OF THE EAST. 



" Twining the floweret in her rainbow wreath, 

 She bore it followed by the golden beam 

 To bygone ages and to distant climes." 



Something of the beautiful yet remains to man, something of the 

 fair and good, to cheer the hours of the present, and serve as emblems 

 of the future and the past. We talk of the gone-time as if dreams 

 and shadows only peopled it — as if the spirits of the great moved amid 

 forms of darkness — dealing only with their dreams ; while we look 

 forward through a hope whose atmosphere is rosy, and with many 

 heatings of the heart and pulse, believe in the reality of the future. 

 Yet the present is but another leaf unfolding on the tree of time ; the 

 future will be but a leaf added, and added too, as leaves are out of 

 doors, certainly, but imperceptibly. The present is the only reality, 

 and love as we may those reveries in which the past comes back in 

 shadow, we may at least receive it as a reality for the time, and go 

 back to it over a path of flowers. The future is a cloud, the past is a 

 cloud also, but in it there are gaps of sunshine, and between its wreath- 

 ing folds we see glimpses of men and women — breathing forms of 

 thought — here struggling, there embracing ; here pining under false 

 faith, and despotism and savagery; there giving the soul room to 

 grow in an atmosphere of love, kneeling together before shrines of 

 light. There are burning sands and rocky heights, and giant caverns 

 where darkness crouches, and blood trickles unseen. Temples, altars, 

 and sickening cities where death holds carnival ; and over all are 

 wreaths of flowers, twining, creeping, — in thick bowers of fragrance, 

 in lovely forms of gi'een leafiness, in mossy slopes, and shady coolness 

 and delightful umbrage. " Flowers foreshadow the future," but they 

 LjUide us through the past ; lead the way into its dark recesses, and 

 point us to the birthplaces of the holiest influences. Strangely, but 

 truly, do flowers mingle in all the events and passions of the world, 

 refreshing the heart of man with their greenness, and binding life and 

 love together by plaited wreaths of beauty. Strangely, but truly, do 

 these plaited wreaths unwind from columns which have crumbled in 



