60 PROSERPINA. 



on the grass of its valley, and entangled among the laurel 

 sterns, or glancing from their leaves, became a thousand- 

 fold lovelier and more sacred than the same sunbeams, 

 burning on the leafless mountain-side. 



And farther, the leaf, in its connection with the river, 

 is typically expressive, not, as the flower was, of human 

 fading and passing away, but of the perpetual flow and 

 renewal of human mind and thought, rising " like the riv- 

 ers that run among the hills " ; therefore it was that the 

 youth of Greece sacrificed their hair the sign of their 

 continually renewed strength, to the rivers, and tc 

 Apollo. Therefore, to commemorate Apollo's own chief 

 victory over death over Python, the corrupter, a laurel 

 branch was gathered every ninth year in the vale of 

 Tempe ; and the laurel leaf became the reward or crown 

 of all beneficent and enduring work of man work of in- 

 spiration, born of the strength of the earth, and of the dew 

 of heaven, and which can never pass away. 



29. You may doubt at first, even because of its grace, 

 this meaning iri the fable of Apollo and Daphne ; you 

 will not doubt it, however, when you trace it back to its 

 first eastern origin. When we speak carelessly of the tra- 

 ditions respecting the Garden of Eden, (or in Hebrew, re- 

 member, Garden of Delight,) we are apt to confuse Milton's 

 descriptions with those in the book of Genesis. Milton 

 fills his Paradise with flowers ; but no flowers are spoken 

 of in Genesis. "We may indeed conclude that in speaking 

 of every herb of the field, fkwers are included. But they 



