28 
POETICAL LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
I 
sacrifice,— and we know no more. Ages have passed 
away since that procession moved — the shadows of 
two thousand years have settled down over the hills 
and valleys where those beautiful maidens first gath¬ 
ered the flowers of Summer — history has left no 
record of their existence — the language in which 
they breathed their loves, their hopes, and their fears, 
has died away — even their name as a nation is for¬ 
gotten : and all we know is, that their men looked 
noble and their women beautiful, and that flowers 
were used in their sacred ceremonies, and that all, 
saving the mute figures upon the marble, have long 
since passed away. We sigh, and try in vain to deci¬ 
pher these ancient emblems. 
Love returned to the fables of the Heathen Poets, 
and there he found that those whose beauty the gods 
could not lift into immortality, they changed into 
flowers; as if they considered that next to the glory 
of being enthroned upon Olympus, was to be trans¬ 
formed into a beautiful and fragrant object—one that, 
so long as the sun shone upon the world, and the 
globed dews hung their rounded silver upon the blos¬ 
soms, so long should it stand throughout all time, 
“ A thing of beauty and a joy for ever.” 
