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BOOKS AND FLOWERS.
BY MRS. HEMANS.
"La vue d'un fleur caresse mon imagination, et flatte mes sens a un point inexprimable. Sons le tranquille abri du toil paternel, j'etois nourrie des l'infance avec des fleurs et des livres;—dans l'etroite enceinte d'une prison, au millieu des fers imposes par la tyrannie, j'oublie l'injustice des hommes, leurs sottises et mes maux, avec des livres et des fleurs."
Madame Roland.
Come, let me make a sunny realm around thee,
Of thought and beauty! Here are books and flowers,
With spells to loose the fetter which hath bound thee,
The ravelled coil of this world's feverish hours.
The soul of song is in these deathless pages,
Even as the odour in the flower enshrined;
Here the crowned spirits of departed ages,
Have left the silent melodies of mind.
Their thoughts, that strove with time, and change, and anguish,
For some high place where Faith her wing might rest,
Are burning here;—a flame that may not languish,
Still pointing upward to that bright Hill's crest!
Their grief, the veiled infinity exploring
For treasures lost, is here;—their boundless love,
Its mighty streams of gentleness outpouring
On all things round, and clasping all above.
