HOW THE ROSE BECAME RED. 
69 
makes a loud report, their swains are true, while if 
it bursts in silence, it foretells that their lovers are 
false. In allusion to this, there is an old stanza, 
written, if I err not, by the poet Gray, which says, 
“ By a prophetic poppy-leaf I found 
Your changed affection, for it gave no sound, 
Though in my hand struck hollow, as it lay, 
But quickly withered, like your love, away.” 
In the Apple-blossom we see the Lily and the 
Rose blended together, like a blush softening into 
the snowy whiteness of a sweet face ; it may be the 
countenance of some one that we secretly love—yet 
dare not, for very fear, give utterance to our affection 
lest some rival should already be preferred. It may 
be, at the same time, that we already stand high in 
her estimation, and yet her innate modesty causes 
her to shrink back from revealing it; and so we go on 
dallying and sighing together, like the spring breeze 
playing in and out between a bunch of Apple- 
blossoms, then quitting them until the warmer air 
of the bolder summer comes forth, and ripens the 
blushing blossoms into the full fruit of mellowed 
love. Of all the beauties which Spring hangs upon 
the trees, as she leaves a wreath here and a garland 
there, the loveliest of all her rich decorations is still 
the opening Apple-blossoms—the emblem of Pre¬ 
ference in Love. 
