92 LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS, 
by our dogs, after losing her whole family ; the doe, 
pursued by the hounds ; the skulking hare, the 
timid rabbit, at first alarmed at sight of me, will by 
degrees become familiar with my griefs : perhaps 
they will even come to my feet to seek protection 
from the persecution of men. Ye, too, will hover 
round me, industrious bees ; and if I pluck but a 
single sprig from the Heath of your solitary haunts, 
ye will come to my very hands for the honey, which 
ye gather not for yourselves, but for others. And 
you, noisy quails, will measure both for yourselves 
and for me the hours which fly away, without 
leaving behind me in these wilds either traces or 
regrets. Gentle doves, tender nightingales, your 
sighs and murmurs were made for fragrant bowers ; 
but I can no longer muse in their shade. The 
voice of the monarch of this solitude scares you 
away ; for me it has charms : with the first beams 
of the moon its melancholy tones will reach the ear. 
The owl will then issue from the hollow trunk of 
some time-worn oak. Perched on the boughs 
which hide his mossy retreat, his screech affrights 
the timid maiden as she counts the hours of her 
lover's absence; it thrills the mother watching 
beside the couch on which fever has prostrated her 
