82 
POETICAL LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
tween which many a beautiful divinity was seated. 
The golden clouds of sunset gathered red and omin¬ 
ously about the rounded summit of Olympus, and a 
blood-red light glared upon such parts of the forest as 
were not darkened by the deepening shadows of the 
approaching twilight,—for the Thunderer had stamped 
his immortal foot, and jarred the mighty mountain to 
its very base. And now, in that forest glade, which 
but a few moments before was so wild and desolate,— 
where only the forms of the grisly boar, the dead Ado¬ 
nis, and the weeping Goddess of Beauty, broke the 
level lines of the angry sunset, were assembled the 
stern Gods, and the weeping Graces, and the fluttering 
Loves that ever hover around the chariot of Venus. 
With bleeding feet and drooping head—wan, and cold, 
and speechless,—was the Goddess of Beauty lifted into 
her golden chariot, and, with the dead body of Adonis, 
wafted by her silver and silent-winged doves to Mount 
Olympus. And then a deep darkness settled down 
upon the forest. When the next morning’s sun arose 
and gilded those silent glades, the Roses, on which the 
blood of the Goddess of Beauty had fallen, and which 
were ever before white, were changed into a delicate : 
crimson; and wherever a tear had fallen, there had 
