The Poetry of Flowers. 
17 
PART II. 
There was a power in this sweet place— 
An Eve in this Eden—a ruling grace, 
Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream, 
Was as God is to the starry scheme. 
A lady—the wonder of her kind, 
Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind, 
Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion, 
Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean— 
Tended the garden from morn to even ; 
And the meteors of that sublunar heaven, 
Like the lamps of the air when night walks forth, 
Laughed round her footsteps up from the earth ! 
She had no companion of mortal race, 
But her tremulous breath and her flushing face 
Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, 
That her dreams were less slumber than paradise. 
As if some bright spirit for her sweet sake 
Had deserted heaven while the stars were awake ; 
As if yet around her he lingering were, 
Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. 
Her step seemed to pity the grass it prest; 
You might hear by the heaving of her breast, 
That the coming and the going of the wind 
Brought pleasure there, and left passion behind. 
And wherever her airy footstep trod, 
Her trailing hair from the grassy sod 
Erased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep, 
Like a sunny storm o'er the dark green deep. 
I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet 
Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet; 
B 
