FLOWEKSj AND THEIR MEMORIES. 143 



which blossom gillyflowers, and my heart beats as if I were 

 about to find her in the garden. That convolrulns, those 

 beautiful violets, white, rose-coloured, streaked bells, which 

 climb up trees and shrubs, tell me on what day it was we 

 sowed some of its seeds together, and at what hour of the 

 day, and what was the form at that instant of the wliite 

 clouds in the blue heavens, and how, on rising up, as we had 

 stooped to put the seeds in the ground, our hair touched; and 

 my hair again seems to communicate an electric shock to my 

 heart. And, afterwards, how both arose early to see our con- 

 volvulus, whose flowers close and fade as soon as they are 

 touched by the sun. I still know which of the plants bloomed 

 first ; it was a large bell of a beautiful dark blue, passing to 

 violet by insensible gradations as the eye approached the 

 bottom of the flower, which was white. There were some 

 white ones, divided by a rose-coloured, faint blue, or violet 

 cross ; others of a pale rose, with a deeper-coloured cross ; 

 some striped with white, rose, and violet. 



And the large Passe-Eoses, with their noble and majestic 

 port, like that of Italian poplars. There were lime-trees in the 

 garden, a tuft of yellow blossoms always filled with bees, 

 black and orange drones, and large black flies with violet 

 wings. It appears to me when I here see the yellow Passe- 

 Eoses, and black flies with violet wings, and bees, and brown 

 and orange drones, it appears to me that these things, like those 

 of another time, draw other circumstances after them, like the 

 beads of a rosary. 



Blossom, blossom ! graceful monuments which I have raised 

 to my beloved dead, to all that I have believed, to all that 

 I have loved, to all that I have hoped, to all that which like 

 thee has blossomed in my heart, to all that has faded, but for 

 ever, whilst every summer ye return with your beauty, your 

 youth, and your perfume ! 



