32 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history," says Plato, 

 and in similar vein of thought Hawthorne avers that "creation 

 was not finished until the poet came to interpret and complete it." 

 But after all, were not such disciples as Darwin and Muller and 

 Sprengel, the prophets of the flowers, more than mere scientists? 



Returning to our primrose glen, how irresistibly do we bring 

 to mind those fragrant lines of Moore's, even though they now 

 sing to my twilight "primrose," where they sang of woodbine 

 and " jasmine buds " with him ! 



"'Twas midnight through the lattice wreathed 

 With woodbine many a perfume breathed 

 From plants that wake when others sleep. 

 From timid jasmine buds that keep 

 Their odor to themselves all day, 

 But when the sunlight dies away 

 Let the delicious secret out 

 To every breeze that roams about." 



Look ! Our misty primrose dell is fast lighting its pale lamps 

 in the twilight. One by one they flash out in the gloom as if 

 obedient to the hovering touch of some Ariel unseen or is it the 

 bright response to the fire-fly's flitting torch ? The sun has long 

 sunk beneath the hill. And now, when the impenetrable dusk 

 has deepened round about, involving all, where but a moment 

 since all was visible, this shadowy dell has forgotten the sunset, 

 and knows a twilight all its own, independent of the fading glow 

 of the sky. It was a sleepy nook by day, where it is now all life 

 and vigilance ; it was dark and still at noon, where it is now 

 bright and murmurous. The "delicious secret" is now whispered 

 abroad, and where in all the mystic alchemy of odors or attars 

 shall you find such a witching fragrance as this which is here 

 borne on the diaphanous tide of the jealous gliding mist, and 

 fills the air with its sweet enchantment the stilly night's own 

 spirit guised in perfume? Yonder bright cluster, deep within 

 the recess of the alders, how it glows ! fanned by numerous 

 feathery wings, it glimmers in the dark like a phosphorescent 



