TIME AND THE FLOWERS. 181 
place of the solitude and dreariment which he had left 
behind, be fragrant with the breath of a thousand 
flowers and alive with the hum and murmuring of 
bees. “ I will destroy the flowers,” said Time ; “ they 
rob all my ruins of their solemnity, and no one can 
think of desolation wherever they are seen to wave: 
before me they spring up, and behind me they arise, 
in the very footsteps where I have left the marks of 
death, decay, and desolation : they bloom in the silent 
aisles of the very abbeys which I have unroofed; and 
where I have swept away every trace of the massy and 
ornamented roofs of the dead, there they come and 
wave.” And as he sat upon the base of the ruined 
column, he began to sharpen his scythe; but just as 
he was about to commence the work of destruction, one 
of the wandering Spirits of the Flowers rose up before 
him, and placed her hand upon his arm. “Wilt thou 
spoil the beauty of thine own workmanship ?” said the 
fair Spirit of the Blossoms: “what greater victory 
wouldst thou wish to win over the power of man, than 
that which thou hast already obtained ? Thou pass- 
est over his mighty works, and they crumble at thy 
touch into the dust: thou hast but to sit down and 
look upon the masses of masonry which he has piled 
