22 



Branched and embroidered like the painted spring ; 

 Each leaf match'd with a flower, and each string 

 Of golden wire ; * * * * 



* * There seem to sing the choice 



Birds of a foreign note and various voice ; 

 Here hangs a mossy rock ; there plays a fair 

 But chiding fountain purled ; not the air 

 Nor clouds, nor thunder, but are living dravm ; 

 Not out of common tiflany or lawn. 

 But fine materials which the muses know, 

 And only know the countries where they grow. 



Attributed to George Chapman. 



Without these glorious hues and forms, indeed, I know- 

 not of what materials the literature of a nation could be 

 composed. And thus it is, that from the earliest age, and 

 amongst every people, their beauty and the spirit of their 

 beauty have haunted the soul of song. We know that in 

 all the countries of the East, flowers have forever consti- 

 tuted the symbols of sentiment and affection. The Greeks, 

 who appear to me, by no means, deficient in that element 

 of the romantic which the moderns are so ready to arro- 

 gate entirely to themselves, were passionate in their love 

 of flowers. From them have descended to us the custom 

 of their employment in triumphal pageants, and on occa- 

 sions of joyful or mournful ceremony ; and they had 

 scarcely a familiar flower, of the garden or the field, 

 which their imagination had not woven into some lovely 

 legend, or made the subject of some fanciful metamorpho- 

 sis. By that most poetical of all people, the Hebrews, 

 they were employed as the vehicles of many a touching 

 and beautiful similitude. Of all the gorgeous company, 

 there are none so familiar to our tongues and hearts, as 

 the two which they have most distinguished with their 

 affectionate admiration. How the spirit of devotion itself 

 appears to spring at the very mention of the familiar 

 names of things so beautiful and pure ! 



