As flames among the lofty woods are thrown On different sides, and both by winds are blown; The laurels crackle in the sputtering fire; The frighted sylvans from their shades retire: Or as two neighbouring torrents fall from high, Rapid they run; the foamy waters fry; They roll to sea with unresisted force, And down the rocks precipitate their course: Not with less rage the rival heroes take Their different ways; nor less destruction make. An equally wide field for Biblical metaphors is supplied by the world of trees, flowers, and plants. Man is often compared with them, but, strange to say, in two opposite directions: sometimes, inasmuch as he is like them, liable to decay and death; sometimes because unlike them, he does not revive again after death. As instances, the beautiful metaphor in the 103rd Psalm may be quoted: “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone: and the place thereof knoweth it no more.” To this may be added a similar, but shorter, metaphor, the author of which was the often-quoted Ben-Sira. Of this only a small part has been preserved in the Talmud (_Erubin_, p. 54), which runs as follows: “_Rab_ said to _Rab Hammuna_: My son if thou hast (aught) enjoy it, for there is no enjoyment in the nether world (_Shéol_), and death does not tarry. And if thou sayest, I will leave (aught) to my children, who will declare to thee the law in the nether world? The sons of men are like the grass of the field; some of them blossom, and some wither away.” Homer has a striking parallel to it in the sixth book of his _Iliad_ (190), which runs thus:— Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering in the ground. Another race the following spring supplies, They fall successive, and successive rise: So generations in their course decay, So flourish these, when those are passed away. Speaking about metaphors from vegetation mention should be made of an exceedingly pretty simile composed in German by the late Ludwig August Frankl, of Vienna, and probably borrowed from the beautiful lines occurring towards the end of the fifty-fifth chapter of the Book of Isaiah, viz. “As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not hither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater,” &c. In his simile Frankl compares the heaven with a bridegroom who weds the earth in springtime as his bride, and she late in the summer season bears lovely fruit. The English version runs somewhat as follows:— The Beautiful Month of May. This charming month is like a kiss, Given by heaven to his bride, the earth; Telling her with a hidden blush That a mother's joy will soon be hers.