THE POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
87 
I doubt not they felt the spirit that came 
From her glowing fingers through all their frame. 
She sprinkled bright water from the stream 
On those that were faint with the sunny beam; 
And out of the cups of the heavy flowers 
She emptied the rain of the thunder showers. 
She lifted their heads with her tender hands, 
And sustain’d them with rods and osier bands; 
If the flowers had been her own infants, she 
Could never have nursed them more tenderly. 
And all killing insects and gnawing worms, 
And things of obscene and unlovely forms, 
She bore in a basket of Indian woof 
Into the rough woods far aloof. 
In a basket, of grasses and wild flowers full, 
The freshest her gentle hands could pull 
For the poor banish’d insects, whose intent, 
Although they did ill, was innocent. 
But the bee and the beam-like ephemeris, 
Whose path is the lightning’s and soft moths that 
kiss 
The sweet lips at the flowers, and harm not, did 
she 
Make her attendant angels be- 
