The Wallachians, "have a superstition that every flower has a soul, and that the water-lily is the sinless and scentless flower of the lake, which blossoms at the gates of Paradise to judge the rest, and that she will inquire strictly what they have done with their odours."

Thus the Birch Canoe was builded In the valley, by the river, In the bosom of the forest; And the forest's life was in it, All its mystery and its magic, All the lightness of the birch-tree, All the toughness of the cedar, All the larch's supple sinews; And it floated on the river Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, Like a yellow water-lily.

Its haunts are in deep water, near piles of bridges, where the stream is gentle, over gravelly, sandy, or clayey bottoms; deep holes that are shaded, water-lily leaves, and under the foam caused by an eddy.

Expound to me, now, the meaning of that water-lily leaf and its grand simple curve, as it lies sleeping there in the back eddy.' 'Oh, I am too amused to philosophise.

But, undisturbed, the water-lily keeps her fragrant court, with few attendants.

All these hover near the water-lily; but its special parasites are an elegant beetle (Donacia metallica) which keeps house permanently in the flower, and a few smaller ones which tenant the surface of the leaves,larva, pupa, and perfect insect, forty feeding like one, and each leading its whole earthly career on this floating island of perishable verdure.

Also "the clear sky was bright with the autumnal moon, and the air fragrant with the perfume of the wild water-lily, in whose buds the clustering bees were murmuring their song.

The mystic formula or "mani" is imprinted on the pavement of the streets, it floats on flags from the temples, and the wealthy Buddhists maintain sculptor-missionaries, Old Mortalities of the water-lily, who, wandering to distant lands, carve the blessed words upon cliff and stone.

By the Nile, in early days, the water-lily was good not merely for devotion, but for diet.

Our own water-lily is rather more powerful in its uses; the root contains tannin and gallic acid, and a decoction of it "gives a black precipitate, with sulphate of iron."

But our rustic water-lily, our innocent Nymphaea, never claiming such a hot-house glory, never drooping into such a blush, blooms on placidly in the quiet waters, till she modestly folds her leaves for the last time, and bows her head beneath the surface forever.

GREEN SILENCE Silence, whose drowsy eyelids are soft leaves, And whose half-sleeping eyes are the blue flowers, On whose still breast the water-lily heaves, For all her speech the whisper of the showers.

Beauty born of harmonious sound "had passed into her face," and her motions reminded one of a water-lily undulating on its native element.

At a bend in the road opposite the water-lily swamp, while I was cooling myself in the shade of a friendly pine-tree,enjoying at the same time a fence overrun with Cherokee roses,a man and his little boy came along in a wagon.

Bruel prescribes an epithem for the heart, of bugloss, borage, water-lily, violet waters, sweet-wine, balm leaves, nutmegs, cloves, &c. For the belly, make a fomentation of oil, in which the seeds of cumin, rue, carrots, dill, have been boiled.

The large leaves of the water-lily are now served out to each man, and perform the office of plates.

(Like a water-lily folding its petals she adjusts a small shawl about her shoulders, and sinks composedly into her chair.)

" She hid her face in her mother's lap for an instant; and then she lifted it up, as brimful of the light of happiness as is the cup of a water-lily of the sun's radiance.

His labors blossomed in a little village, called from his patron saint the mission of St. Ignace, that displayed its cluster of white huts and wigwams like the petals of a water-lily on the margin of the lake.

It was the Water-Lily pattern,lilies sitting among green leaves with sunshine playing in and out and among them.

Mr. Smythe, who presently became the seventh Viscount Strangford and one of the wittiest of Morning Chroniclers, only to die bitterly lamented before the age of forty, wrote Historic Fancies, Mr. Faber, then a fellow of University College, Oxford, and afterwards a leading spirit among English Catholics, published The Cherwell Water-Lily, in 1840, and on the heels of this discreet volume came the poems of Lord John Manners.

So, as my friend and I took up our walk again, I sang him this little song of the Silence of the Way: Silence, whose drowsy eyelids are soft leaves, And whose half-sleeping eyes are the blue flowers, On whose still breast the water-lily heaves, And all her speech the whisper of the showers.

C. Leptosepala is especially choice, its pure white flowers resembling a water-lily.

See, see, dear Anasúyá, the poor female Chakraváka-bird[70], whom cruel fate dooms to nightly separation from her mate, calls to him in mournful notes from the other side of the stream, though he is only hidden from her view by the spreading leaves of the water-lily.

For the symbolic Water-Lily, recreated by human Art, blooms forever in the capitals of Karnac and Thebes, and wherever columns were reared and lintels laid throughout the length and breadth of the "Land of Bondage."