With pellucid studs the Ice-Flower gems As water fluid is, till it do grow Solid and fixed by cold, Darwin. So in warm seasons love doth loosely flow; Frost only can it hold; Your coldness and disdain Does the sweet course restrain. Cowley. Cactus....Ardent Love. The flower of the Cactus is chosen to signify ardent love, because of the glowing hues of the flower itself, and the heat of the climate in which the plant grows to the greatest size. The gorgeousness of the flower of the Cactus needs no eulogy. No fitter emblem could have been selected to represent the passion of love in its full flame. I think of thee, when soft and wide The evening spreads her robes of light, Sits blushing in the arms of night: And when the moon's sweet crescent springs I think of thee—I think of thee. G. W. Prentice. Thou'rt like a star; for when my way was cheerless and forlorn, And all was blackness like the sky before a coming storm, Thy beaming smile and words of love, thy heart of kindness free, Illumed my path, then cheered my soul, and bade its sorrows flee. Thou'rt like a star—when sad and lone I wander forth to view The lamps of night, beneath their rays my spirit's And thus I love to gaze on thee, and then I think thou'st power To mix the cup of joy for me, even in life's darkest hour. Thou'rt like a star—whene'er my eye is upward turned to gaze Upon those orbs, I mark with awe their clear celestial blaze; And then thou seem'st so pure, so high, so beautifully bright, I almost feel as if it were an angel met my sight. American Ladies' Magazine. Could genius sink in dull decay, The sick soul That burns with love's delusions, ever dreams, Simms's Poems. The rolling wheel, that runneth often round, Spenser. Aloe.... Grief. The Aloe is attached to the soil by very feeble roots; it delights to grow in the wilderness, and its taste is extremely bitter. Thus grief separates us from earthly things, and fills the heart with bitterness. These mag nificent and monstrous plants are found in barbarous Africa: they grow upon rocks, in dry sand under a burning atmosphere. Some have leaves six feet long, and armed with long spires. From the centre of these leaves shoots up a slender stem covered with flowers. Sister Sorrow! sit beside me, Think not, Sorrow, that I hate thee,— I will treat thee as a friend. R. M. Milnes. And this is all I have left now, Silence and solitude and tears; The memory of a broken vow, It It My blighted hopes, my wasted years! may be that I shall forget my grief; Anon. It may be time has good in store for me; may be that my heart will find relief From sources now unknown. Futurity May bear within its folds some hidden spring From which will issue blessed streams; and yet Of comfort no man speak: Shakspeare. Wormwood....Absence. Wormwood is the bitterest of plants; and absence, according to La Fontaine, is the worst of evils. Those in whose anxious breasts the "flame divine" is burning, will agree with the French author in his assertion. To be absent from one we love is to carry a vacant chamber in the heart, which naught else can fill. When thou shalt yield to memory's power, And let her fondly lead thee o'er The scenes that thou hast past before, Of one whose bosom owes to thee So many hours enjoyed in gladness, "Heaven's choicest blessings rest on thee." Miss Gould. |