POETS NARCISSUS. 



draw him away. The naiads, his sisters, bewailed his 

 death, and covered his body with their long hair ; they 

 besought the dryads to raise a wood pile for his funeral 

 rites. Echo followed the nymphs and repeated their plaints 

 with disconsolate voice. The funeral pile was raised, but 

 the body, which it was to reduce to ashes, was gone ; there 

 was found in place of it, a pale and melancholy flower, which 

 even now droops over fountains of water as Narcissus drooped 

 over the Stygian wave. 



From that day the Eumenides have adorned their terrible 

 brows with flowers dedicated to Egotism, which is of all follies 

 the saddest and most fatal. 



The fable of Narcissus has been supposed, by Keats, to 

 have originated in the fancy of a poet. He asks, 



" What first inspired a bard of old to sing 

 Narcissus pining o'er the untainted spring.'*" 



And then he answers. 



" In some dehcious ramble he had found 

 A little space, with boughs all woven round ; 

 And in the midst of all a clearer pool 

 Than e'er reflected in its pleasant cool 

 The blue sky, here and there, serenely peeping, 

 Through tendril wreaths fantastically creeping. 

 And on the bank a lonely flower he spied, 

 A meek and forlorn flower, with nought of pride, 

 Drooping its beauty o'er the watery clearness, 

 To woo its own sad image into nearness : 

 Deaf to light Zephyrus it would not move, 

 But still would seem to droop, to pine, to love. 



163 M 2 



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