182 POETICAL LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
together, and, beneath thy silent gaze, they moulder 
slowly away. It is over thy workmanship that we 
scatter the flowers, to show that thou hast ended what 
he but began ; we but pile up a monument on those 
silent shores, where the pride of man is wrecked. 
Would thy work be less complete if all was blank and 
desolate ? would weary leagues of brown and barren 
land show the traces of thy power ? or would they not 
look like spots over which thy wings had never 
waved? It is the peace and beauty which again 
reigns over the places thy hand hath made desolate, 
that hallow the solitude, and point out that, although 
Nature cannot restore what thou hast overthrown, she 
can still beautify what remains behind.” 
Time mused a moment, then took up his scythe 
and hurried away, leaving the beautiful Spirit to do as 
she pleased with the flowers. 
And ever since that period they have grown about 
the gray ruins which Time hath left behind, and 
waved upon the roofless walls which have decayed be¬ 
neath his mouldering touch, and would, long ago, 
have crumbled into dust, but for the flowers, which 
held the weather-beaten battlements together. Over 
many a mound, beneath which the foundations of for- 
