LEGEND OF THE FLOWER- SPIRITS. 
Ill 
one stem, spotted their centres with the deepest 
crimson, and thus formed the Cowslip. They copied 
the colours of the golden-banded bees and shaped 
the flowers of the Orchis after the form of the 
insect: not a winged butterfly flew past that 
escaped their eyes:—they transferred to the blos¬ 
soms the hues of its deep-dyed wings. They swept 
up all the waste and sweetest blossoms that had 
blown together, crushing them in the hand until 
they formed a solid clump of cream-coloured flowers, 
and so made the Meadow-sweet, that the fields 
might still be laden with the perfume of May, 
when the bloom had flown from off the Hawthorn, 
and resolved itself into one of Summer’s unseen 
perfumes. They made the large Marsh Marigold 
to plant beside high-banked streams, that in the 
water the deep gold of the flowers might be re¬ 
flected, giving them a sun of their own to throw 
its cheerful and yellow light upon the ripples, in 
those deep, shadowy, and out-of-the-way places, 
which the sunshine of heaven but seldom visits. 
And unto all these they gave presiding powers, 
emblems, and virtues, and mysterious meanings; 
many of which Love never recovered again, when he 
set out on his pilgrimage to visit the Shrines of the 
Flowers. And ever as they formed the flowers, and 
strung the beaded buds together upon the stems, 
and perfumed the petals with odours which they 
