Soon she too, there, beside him lay, But still her dear loved wreath she wore : STANZAS. FROM WARD'S MISCELLANY. She drooped, as droops the lotus flower, Strayed there a wild bee o'er her breast, To sear her fair transparent vest, The wild bee wandered not; the gale Those dew-bent clusters fell. As beautifully wan, as meek, As silently declining, She drooped, for whom these eyes are weak, No burst of sorrow rent the link Like lotus-flower from river's brink, "Flower of the Soul! emblem of sentient Thoughts, Wait solemn-while sounds of dew descending Thy beauty blooms on high-serene, beyond our coil!" How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean As if there were no such cold thing. Who would have thought my shrivell❜d heart Could have recovered greenness? It was gone Quite under ground, as flowers depart To see their mother root, when they have blown; Where they, together, all the hard weather, Dead to the world, keep house unknown. These are thy wonders, Lord of Power! Making a chiming of a passing bell, Oh, that I once past changing were ; Fast in thy Paradise, where no flow'r can wither! Off'ring at heav'n, growing and groaning thither, But while I grow in a straight line, Still upward bends as if heav'n were mine own, Thy anger comes, and I decline What past to that? What pole is not the zone Where all things burn when thou dost turn, And the least frown of thine is shown? And now in age I bud again: After so many deaths I live and write: On whom thy tempests fell at night! These are thy wonders, Lord of Love! To make us see we are but flow'rs that glide: Which when we once can find and prove, Thou hast a garden for us where to bide; Who would be more, swelling through store, Forfeit their Paradise by their pride. 171 CHAPTER VI. FLORAL CEREMONIES. "Bring, FLORA, bring thy treasures here, And let me thence a garland frame."-SHENSTONE. We have said, in a former chapter, that we can prove the high antiquity of the application of Flowers to ceremonial purposes, and we now proceed to give such proof as is afforded us by the testimony of ancient writers, and of those modern ones who have made a study of the subject; foremost amongst these latter must be ranked the author of "Flora Historica," from whose excellent work we have derived much of the information which follows. "The worship of FLORA," says MR. PHILLIPS, "among the heathen nations, may be traced up to very early days. She was the object of religious veneration among the Phocians and the Sabines, long before the foundation of Rome; and the early Greeks worshipped her under the name of CHLORIS. The Romans instituted a festival in honour of FLORA as early as the time of Romulus, as a kind of rejoicing at the appearance of the blossoms, which they welcomed as the harbingers of fruits. The festival games of FLORALIA were not, however, regular ly instituted until five hundred and sixteen years after the foundation of Rome, when on consulting the celebrated books of the Sybil, it was ordained that the feast should be annually kept on the 28th day of April, that is four days before the calends of May."-Boun teous May! "Woods and groves are of thy dressing, Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing." AS MILTON Sings, but we shall have much to say of our modern "Feast of Flowers," which, doubtless, had its origin in that above spoken of, and which was introduced by the Roman conquerors into Britain. "O! fairest of the fabled forms! that stream, Climbs the green down or roams the broom-clad waste, CHARLOTTE SMITH. It is thus that an English poetess apostrophizes the Goddess FLORA, who, according to classical authority, was "married to ZEPHYRUS, and received from him the privilege of presiding over flowers and enjoying perpetual youth."-She was represented by OVID and others as crowned with flowers, and holding in her |