INTRODUCTION. 
tii 
Their language ? Prithee! why, they are them¬ 
selves 
But bright thoughts syllabled to shape and hue— 
The tongue that erst was spoken by the elves, 
When tenderness as yet within the world was 
new. 
And, oh ! do not their soft and starry eyes— 
Now bent to earth, to heaven now meekly pleading, 
Their incense fainting as it seeks the skies, 
Yet still from earth with freshening hope reced¬ 
ing— 
Say, do not these to every heart declare, 
With all the silent eloquence of truth, 
The language that they speak is Nature's prayer, 
To give her back those spotless days of youth ?” 
That flowers do mingle in the general prayer 
of nature, no thinking mind can deny. The 
links that bind them—that have ever bound 
them—to humanity, are too manifold to be 
broken or concealed. From the earliest historic 
ages, flowers have mingled with the deeds, and, 
alas ! misdeeds, of man ; and it was probably 
“ the general power of sympathy which caused 
them to be connected with some of the earliest 
events that history records. The mythologies 
of all nations are full of them; and in all times 
they have been associated with the soldiery, the 
governments, and the arts. Thus the patriot 
was crowned with Oak; the hero and the poet 
