18 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
new soil — the grave of all that was lovely and 
beautiful amongst women. And she, whose loss 
the angel mourned, whose image had so often floated 
between him and heaven, rising before his eyes 
when he stood with bowed head amid the ranged 
ranks of the winged cherubim, while the remem¬ 
bered echoes of her voice still seemed to sound 
upon his ears, and made the holy anthem which 
pealed through the vaulted gold grate like harsh 
music,— she, too, was buried deep below : the love¬ 
liest flower which the deluge had destroyed, amid 
all its wreck of bright and beautiful blossoms. 
He raised the dim starlight of his eyes and gazed 
around, but not a vestige remained behind to tell 
of what had been. The trellised bower, over which, 
even at noonday, a green kind of shadowy twilight 
seemed to hang, was swept away, and not a trace 
left to mark out the spot where it had once stood. 
Groaning, he threw himself upon his side, and his 
great immortal heart beat as if it would have burst, 
while the snowy whiteness of his plumes was dab¬ 
bled over with the dark soil, which had settled down 
and blotted out the light of her beauty whom he 
loved. “ Never more,” exclaimed he, in the utter¬ 
ance of his deep agony, “ shall I lean upon thy 
warm shoulder in the evening sunset, listening to 
those silver accents, which to me were sweeter 
music, than that which floated through the envied 
