The Beautiful does not address itself principally to the senses; but, by its exhibition of eternal laws, through them to the soul, for the manifestation of the Divine attributes is the mystic Heart of all true Beauty.'
To give an example of the different appeals made by science and by art, let us open alternately the pages of the poet and savant, let us take some familiar thing, for instance, a common flower, and see what they will tell us of its character, relations, and worth. The botanist notes the distinctions of the flower, that his herbarium may be increased—the poet, that he may make them vehicles of expression, of emotion. The savant counts the stamens, numbers the pistils, delineates the leaves, marks the manner of growth, classifies, affixes a name, and is satisfied;—the poet studies the whole character of the plant, considering each of its attributes as a vehicle of expression, an ethical lesson; he notes its color, he seizes on its lines of grace or energy, rigidity or repose, remarks the feebleness or vigor, the serenity or tremulousness of its hues, observes its local habits, its love or fear of peculiar places, associating it with the features of the situations it inhabits, and the ministering agencies necessary to its support. It becomes to him a living creature, with histories written on its leaves, and passion breathing in its tremulous stems. He associates and identifies it with the history and emotions of humanity. Feeling that even these fragile flowers are symbolic of a moral world, he crowns the bride with white roses, orange buds, or snowy myrtle wreaths, to typify that innocence and chastity are essential to a love that is to last as long as life endures. He wreathes the redeemed with undying amaranth, unfading palms, to symbolize that their meek triumph is for eternity; while he places in the hands of the angels the sculptured chalice of the snowy lily, with its breath of incense and stamens of molten gold, as an imperfect type of the perfect purity, sweet peace, and glorious golden splendor of the Heavenly City.
The pages of the poets are full of beautiful lessons and tender illustrations drawn from the fragile flowers. We cite Lowell's lines to one of our most common flowers:
TO THE DANDELION.
Dear common flower that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
First pledge of blithesome May,
Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they
An Eldorado in the grass have found,
Which not the rich earth's ample round
May match in wealth—thou art more dear to me
Than all the prouder summer blooms may be.
Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,
Nor wrinkled the lean brow
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;
'Tis the spring's largess, which she scatters now
To rich and poor alike with lavish hand,
Though most hearts never understand
To take it at God's value, but pass by
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.
Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;
The eyes thou givest me
Are in the heart, and heed not space or time:
Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee
Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment
In the white Lily's breezy tent,
His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.
Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,—
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,
Where, as the breezes pass,
The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,—
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,
Or whiten in the wind,—of waters blue
That from the distance sparkle through
Some woodland gap,—and of a sky above
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.
My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee;
The sight of thee calls back the Robin's song
Who, from the dark old tree
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,
And I, secure in childish piety,
Listened as if I heard an angel sing
With news from heaven, which he could bring
Fresh every day to my untainted ears,
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.
How like a prodigal doth nature seem
When thou, with all thy gold, so common art!
Thou teachest me to deem
More sacredly of every human heart,
Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
Did we but pay the love we owe,
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look
On all these living pages of God's book.
Wordsworth's 'Daisy' is very beautiful, and full of moral lessons:
In youth, from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill, in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,
Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,—
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly nature's love partake
Of thee, sweet Daisy!
When winter decks his few gray hairs,
Thee in the scanty wreath he wears;
Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
That she may sun thee;
Whole summer fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.
In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane;
If welcome once, thou count'st it gain;
Thou art not daunted,
Nor car'st if thou be set at nought:
And oft alone in nooks remote
We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.
Be violets in their secret mews
The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;
Proud be the Rose, with rains and dews
Her head impearling;
Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,
Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim
The Poet's darling.
If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine, lie
Near the green holly,
And wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look about, and there
Thou art: a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.
A hundred times, by rock or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couched an hour,
Have I derived from thy sweet power
Some apprehension;
Some steady love, some brief delight;
Some memory that had taken flight;
Some chime of fancy wrong or right,
Or stray invention.
If stately passions in me burn,
And one chance look to thee should turn,
I drink out of an humbler urn
A lowlier pleasure;
The homely sympathy that heeds
The common life our nature breeds;
A wisdom fitted to the needs
Of hearts at leisure.
Sweet flower! for by that name at last,
When all my reveries are past,
I call thee, and to that cleave fast,
Sweet, silent creature!
That breath'st with me in sun and air,
Do thou, as thou wert wont, repair
My heart with gladness and a share
Of thy meek nature!
With still deeper poetic feeling has that untutored bard of nature, poor Burns, written of this little flower:
TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY,
On turning one down with the plough, in April, 1786.