TIME AND THE FLOWERS. 
165 
then turned away weeping and silent: and all night, 
as he stood alone, sorrowing, beside the battlements 
of heaven, his immortal heart smote him for what 
he had done. 
It was one day, as Time sat musing in the midst 
of his ruins, while his scythe lay idly by his side, 
and he took no notice of the glass, as through 
it ebbed slowly the ever-moving sand, that his 
thoughts turned to the cities he had laid low, and 
the countries over which he had marched, through 
many a bygone century. Much he marvelled within 
himself that the scenes which he had ages ago made 
desolate, should, in spite of his inroads, have again 
recovered their beauty, and in place of the solitude 
and dreariment which he had left behind, be fragrant 
with the breath of thousands of flowers, and alive 
with the hum and murmuring of bees. “ I will 
destroy the flowers,” said Time; “ they rob all 
my ruins of their solemnity, and no one can 
think of desolation wherever they are seen to 
wave : before me they spring up, and behind me 
they arise in the very footsteps where I have left 
the marks of death, decay, and desolation : they 
bloom in the silent aisles of the very abbeys which 
I have unroofed ; and where I have swept away 
every trace of the massy and ornamented roofs of 
the dead, there they come and wave.” And as he 
