THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.
It is said that the flowers, as well as the birds,
Have a language peculiar, with phrases and words;
And that oft, in the hush of a warm summer day,
You may hear, if you listen, whatever they say.
I have doubted till lately, and thought it was all
The whim of some dreamer, whom poet they call;
But since the sweet seventh of June, fifty-one,
My doubts have all vanished, like mists in the sun.
As I walked in the garden I saw a sweet rose,
Such as seldom on this side of Paradise grows,
With a deep, deepening blush overspreading its cheek,
Leaning down to a lily, as if it would speak.
Behind a tall orange in bloom, as it spread
Its rich fragrant shadow all over the bed,
Unperceived by the parties, I paused in my walk
And, in truth, overheard an intelligent talk.
First, a low, distant murmur arrested my ear,
Like the memory of tones which in dreaming we hear;
Then, clear and distinct, though subtile as thought,
Their simple, articulate language I caught.
“Thou fairest of gems,” said the rose, bending down,
“Too sweet for the earth and too chaste for a crown,
I would thou wert taller, that here, in my place,
The world might appreciate thy sweetness and grace.”
“Nay, nay, lovely rose,” the fair lily replied,
“It is safer in humble retirement to hide;
Earth’s praises I court not; my graces were given
To exhale, in their careless redundance, to heaven.”
As the rest of their talk was of love, and as I
Was acting the part of an eaves-dropping spy,
I will not report it; but this I have told,
As conveying a lesson for young and for old.
