POPPY. 297 



" Near the Cimmerians lurks a cave, in steep 

 And hollow hills, the mansion of dull Sleep : 

 Not seen by Phoebus when he mounts the skies. 

 At height, nor stooping ; gloomy mists arise 

 From humid earth, which still a twilight make : 

 No crested fowle's shrill crowings here awake 

 The cheerful morn : no barking sentinell 

 Here guards, nor geese, who wakeful dogs excell : 

 Beasts tame, nor salvage, no wind-shaken boughs. 

 Nor strife of jarring tongues, with noises rouse 

 Secured ease. Yet from the rock a spring. 

 With streams of Lethe softly murmuring, 

 Purles on the pebbles, and invites repose : 

 Before the entry pregnant poppy grows; 

 With numerous simples, from whose juycie birth 

 Night gathers sleep, and sheds it on the earth." 



Sandys' Ovid. 



" Sleep-bringing poppy, by the plowmen late. 

 Not without cause, to Ceres consecrate : 

 For being round and full at his half-bu-th. 

 It signified the perfect orb of earth ; 

 And by his inequalities when blowne 

 The earth's low vales and higher hills were showne ; 

 By multitude of grains it held within. 

 Of men and beasts the number noted bin ; 

 Or cause that seede our elders used to eate. 

 With honey mixt (and was their after meate) ; 

 Or since her daughter that she loved so well. 

 By him that in th' infernal shades does dwell. 

 And on the Stygian banks for ever raignes, 

 (Troubled with horrid cries and noise of chaines) 

 Fairest Proserpina, was rapt away ; 

 And she in plaints the night, in tears the day. 

 Had long time spent : when no high power could give her 

 Any redresse, the poppy did relieve her: 

 For eating of the seeds, they sleep procured. 

 And so beguiled those griefs she long endured." 



W. Browne, vol. ii. 97. 



By the ancients the seeds of the White Poppy were 

 served up in their desserts ; and they are now used by the 

 Germans to sprinkle over cakes: we use them by their 



