The language of flowers : $b The floral offering ; a token of affection and esteem ; comprising the language and poetry of flowersDumont, Henrietta
General
The language of flowers : $b The floral offering ; a token of affection and esteem ; comprising the language and poetry of flowers
Dumont, Henrietta
Flower language; Flowers in literature
She would have given her immortality but to have heard those lips
murmur and complain, as they had done a few hours before--to have
seen those eyes again burning with disdain, as they flashed back
indignantly the warm advances of her love. She pictured him as he
had that very morning stood, in all the pride of youthful manliness
and beauty, when he looked down, blushing and abashed, as he held
his boar-spear in his hand, when she threw the studded bridle over
her own rounded and naked arm, and the proud courser pricked up his
ears with delight, and shook his braided mane, while his long tail
streamed out like a banner, and his proud eye dilated, and his
broad nostrils expanded, as he went trampling haughtily on, proud
to be led by the Queen of Beauty and of Love. She pictured the
Primrose bank on which he lay twined reluctantly in her arms, how
he tried to conceal his face, this way, and that way, among the
flowers, whenever she attempted to press his lips,--
“While on each cheek appeared a pretty dimple:
Love made those hollows, if himself were slain,
He might be buried in a tomb so simple.”
She recalled his attitude as he untwined himself from her embrace,
and hurried off in pursuit of his steed, which had snapped the rein
that secured it to the branch of a neighbouring oak, and started at
full speed down one of the wild avenues of the forest. In fancy she
again saw him, as he sat panting upon the ground, weary with the
fruitless pursuit; and how, kneeling down, she then
“Took him gently by the hand,
A lily prisoned in a jail of snow,
Or ivory in an alabaster band:
So white a friend engirt so white a foe;
A beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,
Showed like two silver doves that sat a-billing.”
And as she looked upon him, she imagined that his lips moved again,
as when they said, “Give me my hand, why dost thou feel it?” she
fancied she again felt his face upon her cheek--his kisses upon her
lips, as when she fell down and feigned herself dead; the while he
bent her fingers, and felt her pulse, and endeavoured by a hundred
endearments and tender expressions, to restore her. And how, when
she pretended to recover, she paid him back again with unnumbered
kisses, whilst he, wearied with opposing her, no longer offered any
resistance; and how, at last, he broke from her fair arms, and,
darting down the “dark lawn,” left her seated alone upon the
ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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