ORCHIDS. 
HYMN TO THE FLOWERS. 
*Neath cloistered boughs, each floral bell that swingeth 
And tolls its perfume on the passing air, 
Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth 
A call to prayer. 
There — as in solitude and shade, I wander 
Through the green aisles, or, stretched upon the sod, 
Awed by the silence, reverently ponder 
The ways of God. 
Your voiceless lips, O Flowers, are living preachers, 
Each cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book, 
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers 
From loneliest nook. 
“Thou wert not, Solomon! in all thy glory, 
Arrayed” the lilies cry, “in robes like ours;” 
How vain your grandeur! Ah, how transitory 
Are human flowers! 
Posthumous glories! angel-like collection! 
Upraised from seed or bulb interred in earth, 
Ye are to me a type of resurrection, 
And second birth. 
Were I, O God, in churchless lands remaining, 
Far from all voice of teachers or divines, 
My soul would find, in flowers of thy ordaining, 
Priests, sermons, shrines! 
Horace SMITH. 
II 
