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 Miller 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 
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tay as Fs 
2 Ya aN be Ooh 
