WILLIAM COWPER. IT is with flowers as with moral qualities- the bright are sometimes poisonous, but, I believe, never the sweet. What plant we in this apple-tree? Boughs where the thrush with crimson breast A shadow for the noontide hour, What plant we in this apple-tree? That fan the blue September sky, While children come, with cries of glee, And when, above this apple-tree, And guests in prouder homes shall see, THE sense of beauty in Nature, even among cultured people, is less often met with than other mental endowments. UTHER always kept a flower in a glass on his writing-table; and when he was waging his great public controversy with Eckins he kept a flower in his hand. Lord Bacon has a beautiful passage about flowers. As to Shakespeare, he is a perfect Alpine valley-he is full of flowers; they spring, and blossom, and wave in every cleft of his mind. Even Milton, cold, serene, and stately as he is, breaks forth into exquisite gushes of tenderness and fancy when he marshals the flowers. |