LEGEND OF THE FLOWER- SPIRITS. 
Ill 
one stem, spotted their centres with the deepest 
crimson, and thus formed the Cowslip. They copied 
the colours of the golden-handed bees and shaped 
the flowers of the Orchis after the form of the in¬ 
sect : not a winged butterfly, flew past that escaped 
their eyes:—they transferred to the blossoms the 
hues of its deep-dyed wings. They swept up all 
the waste and sweetest blossoms that had blown 
together, crushing them in the hand until they 
formed a solid clump of cream-coloured flowers, 
and so made the Meadow-sweet, that the fields 
might still be laden with the perfume of May, 
when the bloom had flown from off the Hawthorn, 
and resolved itself into one of Summer’s unseen 
perfumes. They made the. large Marsh Marigold 
to plant beside high-banked streams, that in the 
water the deep gold of the flowers might be re¬ 
flected, giving them a sun of their own to throw 
its cheerful and yellow light upon the ripples, in 
those deep, shadowy, and out-of-the-way places, 
which the sunshine of heaven but seldom visits. 
And unto all these they gave presiding powers, 
emblems, and virtues, and mysterious meanings; 
many of which Love never recovered again, when he 
set out on his pilgrimage to visit the Shrines of the 
Flowers. And ever as they formed the flowers, and 
strung the beaded buds together upon the stems, 
and perfumed the petals with odours which they 
