THE SILENCE OF FLOWERS 49 



POETS AND FLOWERS 



(From " The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table ") 



Do you ever wonder why poets talk so much about 

 flowers ? Did you ever hear of a poet who did not 

 talk about them ? Don't you think a poem, which, 

 for the sake of being original, should leave them 

 out, would be like those verses where the letter 

 a or e is omitted ? No, they will bloom over and 

 over again in poems as in the summer fields, to the 

 end of time, always old and always new. Why 

 should we be more tired of repeating ourselves than 

 the spring be tired of blossoms or the night of stars ? 

 Loo 1 -, at Nature. She never wearies of saying over 

 her floral paternoster. In the crevices of Cyclopean 

 walls, in the dust where men lie, dust also, on 

 the mounds that bury huge cities, the wreck of 

 Nineveh and the Babel-heap, still that same sweet 

 prayer and benediction. The Amen ! of Nature is 

 always a flower. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



THE SILENCE OF FLOWERS 



(Prom " Star Papers ") 



WHEN we hear melodious sounds, the wind among 

 trees, the noise of a brook falling down into a deep 

 leaf-covered cavity ; birds' notes, especially at night ; 

 children's voices as you ride into a village at dusk, 

 far from your long absent home, and quite home- 



D 



