Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/99

 a plunge beneath the surface would bring him upon the very roofing of Sheol.

It is the wild flowers of a land that outlive its devastations:—it is these that outlive the disasters or the extermination of its people:—it is these that out-live misrule, and that survive the desolations of war. It is these "witnesses for God"—low of stature as they are, and bright, and gay, and odoriferous—that, because they are infructuous, are spared by marauding bands. These gems of the plain and of the hill-side outlast the loftiest trees of a country:—they live on to witness the disappearance of gigantic forests: they live to see the extinction of the cedar, and of the palm, and of the ilex, and of the terebinth, and of the olive, and of the acacia, and of the vine, and of the figtree, and of the myrtle:—they live to see fulfilled, in themselves, the word—"every high thing shall be brought low; and the humble shall rejoice." So has it been in Palestine: once it was a land of dense timber growths, and of frequent graceful clusters of smaller trees, and of orchards, and of vineyards, which retains now, only here and there, a remnant of these adornments. Meanwhile, the alluvial plains of the land, and its hill sides, are gay, every spring, with the embroidery of flowers—the resplendent crocus, the scented hyacinth, the anemone, the narcissus, the daffodil, the florid poppy, and the ranunculus, the tulip, the lily, and the rose. These jewels of the spring morning—these children