86 POETICAL LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
Lily of the Valley ! what a spring sound there is in 
its very name ! IIow delicate it is, both in form and 
fragrance; resting its white, fairy-like bells upon a deep 
background of green, like a little child which has fallen 
asleep with its careless arms extended upon the emerald j 
April grass. Pleasant visions does it recall before mine 
eyes of other days—-of springs which have long since 
passed away : of old woods just putting forth their 
summer leaves,—dingle, and dell, and glen, and copse, 
and many other sweet woodland spots, amid which we 
rambled for hours together, that were strewn every¬ 
where full “ankle-deep with Lilies of the Valley.” 
Places where the callow throstles first lisped, and the 
golden-beaked blackbird sang,—where the little wren 
went hopping from spray to spray, and the yellow lin¬ 
net warbled forth her song, concealed by the white 
blossoms of the black-thorn,—they have ever seemed 
to us as the sweetest and fairest daughters of Spring— 
the little fairies of the wood, just wakening from their 
winter sleep,— 
“ Shading, like detected light, 
Their little green-tipt lamps of white.” 
The drowsy Poppy has been selected, in floral lan¬ 
guage, as the emblem of Consolation : and, from its 
