All day the rain bathed the dark hyacinths in vain; the flood may pour from morn till night, nor wash the pretty Indian white. [ Hafiz ]

If flowers have souls, said Undine, the bees, whose nurses they are, must seem to them darling children at the breast. I once fancied a paradise for the spirits of departed flowers. They go, answered I, not into paradise, but into a middle state; the souls of lilies enter into maidens' foreheads, those of hyacinths and forget-me-nots dwell in their eyes, and those of roses in their lips. [ Richter ]