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about a piece I read the other day." What was the subject, my son ?" "Leaves having tongues, flowers talking, and the voices of the stars, but I did'nt believe it; I thought 'twas only poetry." "Do you remember any of it Charles!" "Yes, mother, for after it had told all about the wall-flower, and the daisy, and the hawthorn and laurel, and ever so many more, this line came in,

"Yes-flowers have tones-God gave to each,
A language of its own."

Oh, and now I recollect another,

"God spreads the earth, an open book,

In characters of life,

All where the human eye doth look
Seems with His glory rife;
He paints upon the burning sky
In every gleaming star,

The wonder of His homes on high,

Shining to faith afar."

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"Well, do you not think it poetry now?" "Yes, mother, not that, but I think it is true too." "Why, my son ?" "Because as I wandered down by that little murmuring brook, away in the woods, I saw a great oak lying on the ground with some sort of vine wound about it, as though it loved the old tree very much, and I saw that its little claspers were crushed in several places.' "That was ivy, Charles." “Well, I lay down on a green knoll close by it, and that clinging vine somehow told me a thought, as I looked at it; how it was weak and had been creeping all its life, up and up, round and round, and loved the tree very much, and how it thought the oak was strong, very strong, because many great roots held it firmer than a house; but now the tempest had blown it down and crushed the poor ivy in the fall.

Then it seemed to say, cling not to earthly things, for even oaks will not last forever."

I might go on to tell you of what else the mother and her boy conversed, but I must omit it to ask if the flowers ever told you any thing.

Do you say no? I fear that you answer hastily; think a

moment.

Did you never spy a velvet violet peeping out from beneath the snow, and as it unfolded its soft leaves to the winds so chill, have you not wondered why it woke from its winter's sleep so early, and feared that it could not live? And then when you have seen its tiny cup brimming with a June dewdrop, has it not seemed to rebuke your idle wonder at its appearance and apprehension for its fate; and to tell you how that Great Being, Who formed and cradled it in snows, and preserved it amid the cold storms, would much more preserve you?

Did you ever gaze upon that ancient rival of Solomon in his glory-the lily in snowy array;

"That Lily of the vale whose virgin flower,

Trembles at every breeze, beneath its leafy bower,"

without feeling that it had told you a beautiful, but humbling truth? As if it had said, 'deck your person as you will, you are not arrayed like me! When you felt how hopeless it was to vie even with the little flower in external beauty, have you not been conscious that you possessed what the lily cannot claim? A mind that you might adorn, without fear of competition.

There is the Camomile; only yielding a sweeter fragrance as you tread upon it; one can almost think it an intelligent being, adorned with a christian grace. What a beautiful example of good for ill! How eloquent, yet fragrant is the rebuke which it sends up to us from its low bed!

The field of flax, heaving a mimic sea, with its blue blossoms. The painter's canvas is infolded in its lawny stem; yes, and the very tints and lines with which he makes his bright creations almost live and breathe, receive their softness from its lint-seed urns.

Though all unwoven yet, paper is there, to whose fair sheets we owe the record of ten thousand thoughts, thoughts otherwise forgotten.

Flax had a language once; an humble tale of industry and toil; a homely one of peace and happiness and plenty, homely because at home.

The time has been, when poets loved to picture scenes of sweet content, where the "little wheel's" low humming round and round, made music; and when in mournful numbers they would sing of a home deserted, a hearth cold and lonely, and a little band that once clustered there, scattered and gone forever, they would with Rogers sing,

"Her wheel at rest--the matron charms no more."

"Her wheel at rest!" What a feeling of desolateness did this brief, this simple announcement once bring, but not so now. Those days are past, reader, for believe me, such workday music never offends the ears of modern fashionables except by accident.

What an unseemly accompaniment would it be to the thrumming of the piano, or the long drawn sweetness of the "last new song," and yet the lace that flaunts so gaily in the assembly room, and the fair texture which bears the music of that very melody was drawn out to the tune of that same unseemly hum.

I said the flax had a language once; it speaks it yet, but with an air so lowly, so every-day-like, that I fear it is seldom heard or heeded.

I leave its teachings with you, reader, it is the language of truth.

The Weeping Willow! Who has ever seen its pensile form drooping over the streamlet or the tomb, without a feeling of sadness coming over his soul, and the touching remembrance of that time, when Judah's daughters sat down by Ba bel's waters and wept, and

"Silent their harps, each cord unstrung,

On pendent willow branches hung."

Thus the willow of Babylon, though a wanderer from its home in the far-off Levant, bears on its leaves a tale of sor

row.

In the early spring, the little Snow-drop bound in its icy chains, lies close to the frosty earth; but soon the ascending sun melts the crystal links, and the little prisoner looks forth beautiful amid the desolation.

How like the weary, hope-lit spirit, bound in the bonds of mortal sense, and chilled by the rude blasts of a wintry world, which would fain "fly away and be at rest;" and then, when that greater Sun dispels the winter and the gloom, how calm, how beautiful does the manumitted bloom in that bright, balmy clime of perennial spring, where there is no more change.

You have seen the Aspen Poplar conspicuous in the grove, with its silver livery of nature's putting on. Its thousand leaves, you know, will rock like cradles, and quiver at the slightest breath, as though a tempest shook a maple or a beech. How tremblingly alive!

What did the Aspen tell you? Did it not whisper, that while some minds, like maples feel not the breeze, and bow only to the gale, there are others whose quick feelings are as keenly sensitive as its own leaves; hearts whom a look will agitate, a light word melt, a harsh one wither? Thus then

it counselled; "remember your companions; be careful, kind; remember—what? the aspen tree? no, rather the aspen-heart.

I presume that you have had such talks with the trees and flowers, (for what youth, what child has not?) and I hope that now, if never before, you believe of the Language of Nature, in all her vast and beautiful departments, as did Charles of the piece he read, "if it is poetry, it is truth too."

CHAPTER III.

A little floral dictionary-Language of the Nettle-The Bramble-The Olive-The Poppy-What grief will do—The Amaranth-The Mistletoe-What the author ventured to do for the sake of the dialogue-Why the flowers never told the reader a thought-A piece of advice which he will follow, if he please.

The language of this beautiful race is so intelligible, that vocabularies of the thoughts suggested by the different plants and shrubs have been written by individuals of several nations. Many a thought can be expressed in a nosegay, which will be understood equally well by the Spaniard, the Italian and the American; in fact, by all, who are acquainted with the habits and peculiarities of the several flowers which compose it; for, says the poet,

"In eastern lands they talk in flowers,

And they tell in a garland their loves and cares;
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers,

On its leaves a mystic language bears."

Gladly would I let him sing on, were it in accordance with

B

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