2 no 
THE LOVER’S OFFERING, 
Flowers were the burden also of ancient 
song. We might refer to Bion, Moschus, 
Museeus, and the rest of the Greek idyl- 
lists. The Latin poets and historians are 
full of floral imagery. In the poetry of 
modern Italy, France, Spain, and Ger¬ 
many, there is much of the floral element. 
Goethe called the flowers “ stars of earth 
hence Longfellow says,— 
“ Spake full well in language quaint and olden, 
One who dwellcth by the castled Rhine, 
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, 
Stars that in earth’s firmament do shine.” 
“ Stars they ure, wherein we read our history. 
As astrologers and seers of eld ; 
Yet not wrapped about in awful mystery, 
Like the burning stars which they beheld.” 
Longfellow states flowers to be a natural 
revelation of Divine wisdom and goodness, 
the symbols of the most sublime truths; 
namely, the resurrection of the body from 
the grave’s corruption, its union with the 
soul, and its immortal adornment in the 
paradise of God. The most splendid flow¬ 
ers are but faint emblems of the good 
man’s grandeur in the heaven of heavens. 
