ng over the anguish that must surely come.

Love songs belong, too, to the damask rose, but love still set to
martial chords, wrung, as it were, from heroes' wives, in a rapture of
patriotic sacrifice.

The white roses are St. Cecilia's, and swell to organ strains; all but
that whitest rose, so wan and fragile, which haunts old shady gardens,
and never seems to have been there when all things were in their prime,
but to have blossomed out of the surrounding decay and fading
loveliness. From its bowed head falls drearily upon the ear a low lament
over the departed life it would commemorate.

With roses comes the honeysuckle--the real New England one--brimful of
nutmeg; and the sweetbriar, piquant with a _L'Allegro_ strain left by
Milton. Then the laburnum, which, dripping gold, drips honey likewise,
and the locust clusters, and the wistaria, dropping lusciousness.

These are all joy-bells evidently, outbursts of the bliss of nature, but
the garb of the wistaria is more sober than her brilliant sisters, whose
attire is bright and shining.

There are flowers that seem set to sacred music. Lilies, white and
sweet, which, from the Lily of the Annunciation to the lily of the
valley, are hallowed by every reverent fancy; for

'In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea.'

And the little white verbena, which recalls, in some mystic way, the old
Puritan tune, 'Naomi,' whose words of calm submission are so closely
interwoven with one's earliest religious faith.

But in contrast to this meek northern saint of a flower, there is a
southern flush of oleander bloom, that pours out hymns of mystical
devotion, overflowing with the exuberant vitality, glowing with the
intense fervor, of the Tropics.

There are flowers, also, the burden of whose odorous airs is sensibly of
this world only, earthy, sensuous. Such are the cape jessamine and the
narcissus, alike glistening in satin raiment, and alike distilling
aromatic essence. Something akin to the waltzes of Strauss, one might
fancy, is the music suited to their mood.

And the night-blooming cercus--that uncanny white witch of a creature,
with its petals moulded in wax or ivory, its golden-brown
leaf-sheathings, and its unequalled emerald (is it a tint, or is it but
a shadow?) far down within the lovely cup, with that overpowering
voluptuous odor, burdening the atmosphere, permeating the innermost
fibres of sensation, steeping the soul in lethargy! What mo