Buy my Flowers—O buy—I pray, The Blind Girl comes from afar: If the Earth be as fair as I hear them say, These Flowers her children are! Do they her beauty keep? They are fresh from her lap, I know; For I caught them fast asleep In her arms an hour ago, With the air which is her breath— Her soft and delicate breath— Over them murmuring low!— On their lips her sweet kiss lingers yet, And their cheeks with her tender tears are wet, For she weeps,—that gentle mother weeps (As morn and night her watch she keeps, With a yearning heart and a passionate care,) To see the young things grow so fair; She weeps—for love she weeps— And the dews are the tears she weeps From the well of a mother’s love! Ye have a world of light, Where love in the lov’d rejoices; But the Blind Girl’s home is the House of Night, And its Beings are empty voices. As one in the Realm below, I stand by the streams of wo; I hear the vain shadows glide, I feel their soft breath at my side, And I thirst the lov’d forms to see, And I stretch my fond arms around, And I catch but a shapeless sound, For the Living are Ghosts to me. Come buy—come buy!— Hark! how the sweet things sigh (For they have a voice like ours,) “The breath of the Blind Girl closes The leaves of the saddening roses— We are tender, we sons of Light, We shrink from this child of Night; From the grasp of the Blind Girl free us, We yearn for the eyes that see us— We are for Night too gay, In our eyes we behold the day— O buy—O buy the Flowers!” “‘I must have yon bunch of violets, sweet Nydia,’ said Glaucus, pressing through the crowd, and dropping a handful of small coins into the basket; ‘your voice is more charming than ever.’ “The blind girl started forward as she heard the Athenian’s voice—then as suddenly paused, while the blood rushed violently over neck, cheek, and temples. “‘So you are returned!’ said she in a low voice; and then repeated, half to herself, ‘Glaucus is returned!’ “‘Yes, child, I have not been at Pompeii above a few days. My garden wants your care as before, you will visit it, I trust, to-morrow. And mind, no garlands at my house shall be woven by any hands but those of the pretty Nydia.’ “Nydia smiled joyously, but did not answer; and Glaucus, placing the violets he had selected in his breast, turned gayly and carelessly from the crowd. “‘So, she is a sort of client of yours, this child?’ said Clodius. “‘Ay—does she not sing prettily? She interests me, the poor slave!—besides, she is from the land of the Gods’ hill—Olympus frowned upon her cradle—she is of Thessaly.’”