C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Park Benjamin

Flowers are Love’s truest language; they betray,

Like the divining rods of Magi old,

Where precious wealth lies buried, not of gold,

But love—strong love, that never can decay!

Gold! gold! in all ages the curse of mankind,

Thy fetters are forged for the soul and the mind.

The limbs may be free as the wings of a bird,

And the mind be the slave of a look and a word.

To gain thee men barter, eternity’s crown,

Yield honour, affection, and lasting renown.

Look on this edifice of marble made—

How fair it swells, too beautiful to fade.

See what fine people in its portals crowd,

Smiling and greeting, talking, laughings loud!

What is it? Surely not a gay exchange,

Where wit and beauty social joys arrange;

Not a grand shop, where late Parisian styles

Attract rich buyers from a thousand miles?

But step within; no need of further search.

Behold, admire a fashionable church!

Look how its oriel window glints and gleams,

What tinted light magnificently streams

On the proud pulpit, carved with quaint device,

Where velvet cushions, exquisitely nice,

Press’d by the polish’d preacher’s dainty hands,

Hold a large volume clasp’d by golden bands.

Nigh to a grave that was newly made,

Leaned a sexton old on his earth-worn spade.

The mountain rill

Seeks with no surer flow the far bright sea,

Than my unchang’d affections flow to thee.

Beauty and grace command the world.

Flowers are love’s truest language.

Triumph not, O Time! strong towers decay, but a great name shall never pass away.