flowers have been made to teach with
rather wearisome iteration. The poets have never been tired of dwelling
upon their brief existence and seeing in it a reflection of our own.
This rather trite melody has been sounded from the earliest to the
latest times. Drummond of Hawthornden draws attention to the flower
'which lingeringly doth fade,' and sees in it a type of his own life,
which 'scarce shows now what it hath been.' Herrick, apostrophizing
blossoms, deduces from them the fact that all things have their end,
though ne'er so brave. 'Fade, flowers, fade!' cries Waller; ''Tis but
what we must in our autumn do.' And so Dryden:

'The rose is fragrant, but it fades in time...
Such is your blooming youth, and withering so.'

'Youth's withered flowers' made John Clare sigh to think that in him
they would never bloom again.

But this, which may be said to be the orthodox teaching of the flowers,
has found many influential questioners, who have dwelt upon the brighter
side of the contention. And it is pleasant to listen to their more
cheerful voices. 'Not an opening blossom breathes in vain,' wrote
Thomson; and the sentiment is heartily corroborated by Mr. Lowell:

'There never yet was flower fair in vain;
Let classic poets rhyme it as they will.'

If the flowers have a short career, they make no complaint of it, says
Landor:

'Fast fall the leaves; this never says
To that, "Alas! how brief our days!"
All have alike enjoyed the sun,
And each repeats, "So much is won."'

They enjoy life, and they help to make it enjoyable for others.

'Gay without toil and lovely without art,
They spring to clear the sense and glad the heart.'

So Mrs. Barbauld; while Mrs. Howitt similarly proclaims it to be their
business as well as pleasure to minister delight to man, to beautify the
earth.

The present Lord Lytton has remarked of flowers that their scent
outlives their bloom, and has expressed the aspiration that, in like
manner, his mortal hours may 'grow sweeter towards the tomb.' But the
main point made by the more optimistic observers of Nature is that,
though blossoms fade, they revive again, in equal beauty, by-and-by. 'Ye
are to me,' wrote Horace Smith, 'a type of resurrection and second
birth.' To W. C. Bryant the delicate flower, arising from the shapeless
mould, seemed

'An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.'