FLORAL POETRY. 
PART I.—POEMS ON FLOWERS GENERALLY. 
THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
EACH thee their language? sweet, I know no tongue, 
No mystic art those gentle things declare, 
I ne’er could trace the schoolman’s trick am on a 
Created things, so delicate and rare : 
Their language ? prythee ; why, they are themselves 
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 receding— 
Say, do not these to every heart declare, 
With all the silent eloquence of truth, 
Ihe language that they speak is Nature’s prayer, 
lo give her back those spotless days of youth? 
Hoffman . 
D 
