not stoop, as she passes. You think I am rushing into wild
hyperbole! Pardon me, not a whit--I mean what I say in calm
English, spoken in resolute truth. You have heard it said--(and I
believe there is more than fancy even in that saying, but let it
pass for a fanciful one)--that flowers only flourish rightly in the
garden of some one who loves them. I know you would like that to be
true; you would think it a pleasant magic if you could flush your
flowers into brighter bloom by a kind look upon them: nay, more, if
your look had the power, not only to cheer, but to guard;--if you
could bid the black blight turn away, and the knotted caterpillar
spare--if you could bid the dew fall upon them in the drought, and
say to the south wind, in frost--"Come, thou south, and breathe upon
my garden, that the spices of it may flow out." This you would
think a great thing? And do you think it not a greater thing, that
all this, (and how much more than this!) you CAN do, for fairer
flowers than these--flowers that could bless you for having blessed
them, and will love you for having loved them; flowers that have
thoughts like yours, and lives like yours; and which, once saved,
you save for ever? Is this only a little power? Far among the
moorlands and the rocks,--far in the darkness of the terrible
streets,--these feeble florets are lying, with all their fresh
leaves torn, and their stems broken: will you never go down to
them, nor set them in order in their little fragrant beds, nor fence
them in their trembling, from the fierce wind? Shall morning follow
morning, for you, but not for them; and the dawn rise to watch, far
away, those frantic Dances of Death; {28} but no dawn rise to
breathe upon these living banks of wild violet, and woodbine, and
rose; nor call to you, through your casement--call (not giving you
the name of the English poet's lady, but the name of Dante's great
Matilda, who, on the edge of happy Lethe, stood, wreathing flowers