ON FLOWERS. 139 



ic ? Ah I whither have fled, the " woodnymphs wild." that 

 peopled the groves of Attica, and hovered around the hills and 

 woods of Greece ? Come back, ye Graces and ye Fauns ! 

 Come back, ye Dryads, to our oaken groves, ye Nereids to our 

 streams, ye Oreads to our hills ! Come back, 



" Ye Naids of the wandering brooks, — 



With your sedged crowns and ever harmless looks" — Shakspeare. 



" Ye yellow-skirted Fayes, 



That fled — leaving the moon-lov'd maze," — Milton, 



" Come live with me and be my love, 



And WG will all the pleasures prove, 



That hills and valleys, dales and field, 



And all the craggy mountains yield ; — 



And I will make you beds of roses, 



With a thousand fragrant posies, 



A cap of flowers and rural kirtlc, 



Embi'oider'd all with leaves of myrtle." — Shakspeare. 



A little infusion of poetry, a litttle culture of the love of the 

 beautiful; a little time given to its pursuit in the varied and 

 beautiful forms in which God hath robed the woods, the fields, 

 the leaves and the flowers, can do no harm. Will they not 

 rather do much good, in softening, and refining, and hallowing 

 the feelings ? Shall we not be made to partake of a new and 

 more glowing tenderness of heart, and more warm and impas- 

 sioned love of nature and of nature's God ? What is there 

 that more than a flower, evinces the wisdom and the power, 

 and the love of God ? What is there that more fervently kin- 

 dles and sustains the glowing gratitude that warms the heart 

 of one who 



" Sees God in clouds and hears Him in the wind ! " — Pope. 



Nay, who sees Him in everything, and who feels and knows 

 that " God is love," than the contemplation of beautiful 

 flowers? For even He the mighty God, the everlasting 

 Father, that was not in the great and strong winds, nor in the 

 earthquake nor in the fire, but in the still small voice, " is more 

 to he found in the beautiful, than in the sublime, — in peaceful 

 quiet repose, than in the tumultuous noise of the Kingdoms," 

 — in the pattering rain and softer — falling snow, than in the 

 hurricane, the storm, the tempest and the thunder ! 



