ll stir the
rosebuds your modesty keeps hidden in the depths of your heart. Round
the neck of a porcelain vase imagine a broad margin of the gray-white
tufts peculiar to the sedum of the vineyards of Touraine, vague image
of submissive forms; from this foundation come tendrils of the bind-weed
with its silver bells, sprays of pink rest-barrow mingled with a few
young shoots of oak-leaves, lustrous and magnificently colored;
these creep forth prostrate, humble as the weeping-willow, timid and
supplicating as prayer. Above, see those delicate threads of the purple
amoret, with its flood of anthers that are nearly yellow; the snowy
pyramids of the meadow-sweet, the green tresses of the wild oats, the
slender plumes of the agrostis, which we call wind-ear; roseate hopes,
decking love's earliest dream and standing forth against the gray
surroundings. But higher still, remark the Bengal roses, sparsely
scattered among the laces of the daucus, the plumes of the linaria, the
marabouts of the meadow-queen; see the umbels of the myrrh, the spun
glass of the clematis in seed, the dainty petals of the cross-wort,
white as milk, the corymbs of the yarrow, the spreading stems of the
fumitory with their black and rosy blossoms, the tendrils of the grape,
the twisted shoots of the honeysuckle; in short, all the innocent
creatures have that is most tangled, wayward, wild,--flames and triple
darts, leaves lanceolated or jagged, stalks convoluted like passionate
desires writhing in the soul. From the bosom of this torrent of love
rises the scarlet poppy, its tassels about to open, spreading its
flaming flakes above the starry jessamine, dominating the rain of
pollen--that soft mist fluttering in the air and reflecting the light in
its myriad particles. What woman intoxicated with the odor of the vernal
grasses would fail to understand this wealth of offered thoughts, these
ardent desires of a love demanding the happiness refused in a hundred
struggles which passion still renews, continuous, unwearying, eternal!

Put this speech of the flowers in the light of a window to show its
crisp details, its delicate contrasts, its arabesques of color, and
allow the sovereign lady to see a tear upon some petal more expanded
than the rest. What do we give to God? perfumes, light, and song, the
purest expression of our nature. Well, these offerings to God, are they
not likewise offered to love in this poem of luminous flowers murmuring
their sadness t