FLOWERS THAT NEVER FADE 37 



" Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers, 

 Or solitary mere, . . . 



Iris, fair among the fairest, 

 Who, armed with golden rod 

 And winged with the celestial azure, bearest 

 The message of some God." 



Here also is the gentian of Bryant with its 

 "sweet and quiet eye," 



" Blue blue as if the sky let fall 

 A flower from its cerulean wall." 



There is Whittier's " trailing spring flower 

 tinted like a shell," the " lonely " arbutus 

 that " makes the sad earth happier for its 

 bloom." In this case are clustered the 

 "fair phantoms in the sun," "the blue- 

 bells of New England," of which Thomas 

 Bailey Aldrich has so sweetly sung; and 

 in that case " the orphan of summer," " the 

 bright chrysanthemum" of Oliver Wen- 

 dell Holmes, displays "its radiant disks; " 

 while over there the " rival of the rose," 

 "the fresh Rhodora " of Emerson, is bloom- 

 ing in fadeless loveliness to convince us 



" that if eyes were made for seeing, 

 Then beauty is its own excuse for being." 



Visitors of a more practical turn of mind, 

 to whom this literary side of the collection 

 does not appeal, will find much to interest 

 them in the specimens shown in the eco- 



