122 POETICAL LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
ner of crimson clouds, above the rim of the distant 
horizon. Bride of the wood — beloved of the green- 
waving trees ! even the giant oak enfolds thee with a 
fond embrace, and hugs thee in his iron arms with a 
gentle pressure. The hooked bramble wooeth thee -to 
twine lovingly between its thorns, and the graceful 
hazel uplifteth thee on high in his green arms, as if to 
show thy beautiful tiara of flowers to the surrounding 
underwood. Around the green elm dost thou ring thy 
lovely arms, and breathest thy sweet breath in the 
bosom of the hoary hawthorn, when all its milk-white 
blossoms have wandered away. Over wide solitudes, 
where the gorse, and the broom, and the fern, stretch 
far, — where the tangling briar, and the piercing sloe, 
and the armed holly, bid defiance to the footstep of the 
wanderer, — there dost thou sit, with thy fair face look¬ 
ing out from the surrounding turret of leaves, like a 
lovely lady imprisoned in some impregnable castle, 
that stands in the midst of a savage and impenetrable 
forest. 
It was soon after the creation of the world, when the 
hand of Nature had roughed out its mighty work, had 
thrown the mountains ruggedly together, and broad¬ 
cast the flowers over the hills and valleys, that lesser 
