Old Books And Fresh Flowers

Fresh neroli orange flowers and heliotrope blossoms pressed between the delicate paper pages of a leather-bound book. "And all I love is here : old books, fresh flowers. My books are tombs where wit and wisdom sleep, Stored full with treasure of the long ago ; My tender buds, that dews of springtide steep. Like shining mirrors of the future show. The present is so sad ! . . . . this dark to-day Like skies with thunder charged above us lowers : Ah ! of the past — the future — speak always. Tell me of naught but these .... old books, fresh flowers." -- Graham R. Tomson (Rosamund Marriott Watson) Art: Vanitas Still Life by Simon Renard de St. André c. 1650