TIME AND THE FLOWERS. 
167 
Time mused a moment, then took up his scythe 
and hurried away, leaving the beautiful Spirit to do 
as she willed with the flowers. 
And ever since that period they have grown about 
the grey ruins which Time hath left behind, and 
waved upon the roofless walls which have decayed 
beneath his mouldering touch, and would, long ago, 
have crumbled into dust, but for the flowers, which 
held the weather-beaten battlements together. Over 
many a mound, beneath which the foundations of 
forgotten abbeys lie buried, does the crimson-spotted 
and pensive Cowslip still wave, and the early Crocus 
unfold its golden sheath to catch the cheering 
sunshine of Spring. To Time was given power 
over the works of man, but over those of Nature he 
holds no sway; from the very flowers that perish 
others as beautiful spring up, and the oak sheds 
the acorns from which arise other trees. Temples 
and palaces he overturns, and they are no more; 
nor can we ever know the forgotten graves which 
he has obliterated, and trampled into the dust. In 
the undated summers of the past, Youth and Beauty 
wandered over the same flowery meadows which we 
delight in rambling over now ; sunshine and shadow 
swept above the long grass ; and flowers, like those 
we still look upon, bowed idly in the breeze before 
their eyes, as they still do before our own. Could 
they traverse the same spots again in the coming 
