
THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
“Teach thee their language? Sweet, I know no tongue, 
No mystic art those gentle things declare ; 
I ne’er could trace the schoolman’s brick among 
Created things so delicate and rare. 
Their language? Prithee, why, they are themselves 
But bright thoughts syllabled to shape and hue, 
The tongue that erst was spoken by the elves, 
When tenderness as yet within the world was new. 
‘And, oh! do not their soft and starry eyes 
Now bent to earth, to heaven now meekly pl 
Their incense fainting as it seeks the skies, 
Yet still from earth with freshening hope receding. 
Say, do not these to every heart declare, 
eading 
Ss} 
With all the silent eloquence of truth, 
The language that they speak is Nature’s prayer, 
To give her back those spotless days of youth?” 
C. £. Hoffman. 
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