Creole Sketches/The Flower-Sellers
THE FLOWER-SELLERS[1]
They sit forever under the shadows — silver-tressed and ancient — calmly weaving their flowers into rainbow-tinted gifts for youth and beauty.
And I, gazing upon them impassibly weaving the bright blossoms together, dream of the ancient Norns of Scandinavian legends —
Weaving the warp and woof of human destinies; — measuring terms of life as the stems of flowers are measured; —
Mystically mingling Evil with Good; Joy with Sorrow; Love with Grief; — tints of Passion with tints of Melancholy, — even as in a bouquet the hues of a hundred flowers are blended into one rich design.
Evanescent as the beauty of Woman are the colors of the flowers; — volatile their drowsy-sweet odors as the perfume of youth.
And thou, O reader, when thou receivest, from the wrinkled hands of the Norns, who measure the lives of summer blossoms, an odorous gift for the ivory hand of thy living idol, —
Knowest thou that the gift is in itself a voiceless symbol of the fragility of all which thou worshippest?
Fair girl, a mightier Norn than that grey woman who silently weaves her flowers in the sun, has measured the golden thread of thy life: —
Though sweeter than the presence of Esther, bathed six months in palm-oil and rich odors before entering the chamber of the King — thy youth will pass like the breath of a flower; —
Though thy lips be as those of the Shulamitess, they will wither and crisp and wrinkle like the petals of a scarlet blossom; —
And as a flower between the leaves of a book, thou shalt be pressed between the marble covers of that ponderous volume in which Death, who is, alas! strong as Love, keeps the weird record of his deeds.
- ↑ Item, September 11, 1880.