ROMANCE OF NATURE. 
LOVE AND THE FLOWERS. 
Upon a bed of roses Love reclined, 
The heart-dyed flowers across his mouth were thrown, 
And both their sweets were in one breath combined, 
As if they from the self-same bud had blown; 
You could not tell, so sweetly were they blended, 
Where swelled Love’s crimson lip, nor where the rose-bloom 
ended. 
It was in that age when the golden mornings of 
the early world were unclouded by the smoke of 
cities; when the odors from thousands of untrodden 
flowers mingled with the aroma of old forests, and 
the gentlest wind that ever tried its wings, flapped 
its way through vast realms of sleeping fragrance 
— that Love first set out to discover the long-lost 
Language of the Flowers. For there had been 
