178 
POETICAL LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
flowers which then bloomed, and the solemn memory 
of the dead by the fragrant blossoms which they 
showered upon their graves. They recalled their joys 
and sorrows by the seasons, and dated their success or 
adversity by the coming in or going out of the flowers. 
Not that the beating of Time’s gray wings sounded 
the less solemnly upon their ears, or the flapping of his 
hoary plumes passed the less unnoticed, because they 
beat only upon a race who recorded his flight by the 
sleeping and awakening of the flowers ; on the con¬ 
trary, it prepared them for the great change which they 
knew would some day, ere long, take place : and they 
looked forward to their journey to another world with 
a saddened pleasure, deepened the more by the re¬ 
membrance of the beautiful flowers they were com¬ 
pelled to leave behind, and half fearing that they 
misrlit never love those so well, which would bloom for 
ever, in that distant land of eternal light beyond the 
grave. 
They knew not the empty love, in which the heart 
is no partaker, — the vows which they breathed were 
intended to reach heaven, and to be registered there 
amid all other holy things : for to them the Accusing 
Spirit was not an empty name—they believed that its 
