94 
POETICAL LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
ground of deepest gold, or blended and lost amid the 
dark hues of the deepest purple ; even so would the 
thoughts wander over the one, light and cheerful as the 
floating silver of a summer cloud, or stumble over the 
jagged splendor of glittering precipices, like those piled 
heights which grow golden about the dizzy summits of 
sunset, when the western slope of heaven glows again 
with its burning range of upconed mountains, till over 
all the dark-blue purple of the evening twilight gathers, 
and the shadows of night settle thicker upon each 
other, and all the land is dark. So might the unfet¬ 
tered thoughts, wandering over the face of the Pansy, 
picture the bright, and the golden, and the dark, which 
checker the ever-changing countenance of heaven, as j 
hopes, and joys, and fears, and sorrows, brighten and 
fade, and blacken over the brief April sunshine of our 
human existence. 
All the old legends which were known about the 
Pansy in ancient days are lost; saving the one pre¬ 
served by Shakspeare, and woven into his inimitable 
“ Midsummer Night’s Dream,” wherein he tells us 
how 
“The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid, 
Will make, or man or woman, madly dote 
Upon the next live creature that it secs.” 
