OLD SAXON FLOWEBS. 
39 
eyelids of an infant, are ever beating above and 
around thee, as if to tell that they rejoice in, thy 
companionship, and that, although a thousand years 
have strided by with silent steps, Time hath not 
abated an atom of their love. Who can tell the 
thoughts of Saxon Alfred when, wandering alone 
crownless and sceptreless, he stretched himself on 
the lonely moor beneath the shadow of thy golden 
blossoms, sighing for the fair queen he had left far 
behind? When he bowed his kingly head, and, 
musing on thy beauty, buried in a solitary wild, 
thought how even regal dignity would be enhanced 
by Humility, and that, although thou didst grow 
there unmarked and unpruned, not a more princely 
flower waved in his own English garden. And thus 
musing he might pluck the Blue-bell that nodded 
beside thee, and see imaged in the humble and 
beautiful flower, an emblem of Constancy,—might 
mark how ye still grew together side by side, how 
the yellow Broom sheltered the azure Bell which 
bloomed beneath it from storm and wind, and how, 
when the sunshine streamed out, the constant flower 
opened its blue eyes and looked upward, and thus 
they became enamoured of each other. That his 
thoughtful eye glanced over the silent waters of the 
lonely mere, where the White Water-lily sat, like a 
crowned queen upon a green throne of rounded 
leaves, receiving homage from a thousand ripples, 
