48 
POETICAL LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
a thousand flowers were now deeply covered beneath a 
new soil—the grave of all that was lovely and beauti¬ 
ful among women. And she, whose loss the angel 
mourned, whose image had so often floated between 
him and heaven ; rising before him when he stood with 
bowed head amid the ranged ranks of the winged cheru¬ 
bim, while the remembered echoes of her voice still 
seemed to sound upon his ears, and made the holy an¬ 
them which pealed through the vaulted gold, grate like 
harsh music,—she, too, was buried deep below: the 
loveliest flower which the deluge had destroyed, amid 
all its wreck of bright and beautiful blossoms. 
He raised the dim starlight of his eyes and gazed 
around, but not a vestige remained behind to tell of 
what had been. The trellised bower, over which, even 
at noonday, a green kind of shadowy twilight seemed 
to hang, was swept away, and not a trace left to mark 
out the spot where it had once stood. Groaning, he 
threw himself upon his side, and his great immortal 
heart beat as if it would have burst, while the snowy 
whiteness of his plumes was dabbled over with the dark 
soil, which had settled down and blotted out the light 
of her beauty whom- he loved. “ Never more,” ex¬ 
claimed he, in the utterance of his deep agony, “ shall 
