16 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
to quench it; and that while he slept, his heart 
was still awake, and that his dreams were ever of 
Love. 
Although the Myrtle is consecrated to Venus, 
and formed the garland with which the Goddess of 
Love and Beauty was crowned, growing also around 
the temples which were dedicated to her worship, 
still its antiquity dates not so far hack as the 
Forget-me-not, which is as old as memory, and 
coeval with the creation of man. It was amongst 
the first flowers that sprang up from the saturated 
earth, after the overwhelming waters of the great 
deluge had subsided. Its history is found in the 
earliest records of the world, and woven with those 
legends which were current amongst the builders 
of Babel, who, in their ambition, attempted to rear a 
tower, the summit of which was to reach to the 
stars. Thousands of the traditions, that were rich 
in the lore of the antediluvian world, have been lost 
for ages, and it is only in those countries which 
were first peopled by the sons and daughters of 
Noah, that we are able to trace the faint outline of 
their origin, and in one of these relics of forgotten 
poetry we find the legend of the Forget-me-not. 
It was on the site of one of those old homes ol 
the early world—one that had stood beside the 
banks, where as beautiful a river flowed as had ever 
flashed back the golden lines of sunlight from the 
