THE ANNUAL SUN-FLOWER. Ill 



" Who can unpitying see the flowery race, 

 Shed by the morn, their new-flushed bloom resign 

 Before the parching beam ? So fade the fair, 

 When fevers revel through their azure veins. 

 But one, the lofty follower of the sun, 

 Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves, 

 Drooping all night, and, when he warm returns, 

 Points her enamoured bosom to his ray." 



Mr. T. Moore has taken advantage of the same idea, in the words of 

 one of his Irish melodies : — 



" As the sun -flower turns to her god when he sets 

 Tlie same look which she turned when he rose." 



" The flower enamoured of the sun. 

 At his departure hangs her head and weeps, 

 And shrouds her sweetness up, and keeps 

 Sad vigils, like a melancholy nun ; 

 Till his reviving ray appears, 

 W^aking her beauty as it dries her tears." 



Clare gives a natural picture of tlie sun-flower in the following de- 

 scription of the floral ornaments of a rustic cottage : — 



" Where rustic taste at leisure trimly weaves 

 The rose and straggling woodbine to the eaves, — 

 And on the crowded spot that pales enclose. 

 The white and scarlet daisy rears in rows, — 

 Training the trailing peas in bunches neat, 

 Perfuming evening with a luscious sweet, — 

 And sun-flowers planting for their gilded show, 

 That scale the window's lattice ere they blow. 

 Then, sweet to habitants within the sheds. 

 Peep through the diamond panes their golden heads."' 



Village Minstrel, ^-c, vol. ii. page 80. 



The size and splendour of this flower make it very conspicuous, and 

 some have accused it of being gaudy, although constant in the one 

 golden colour of its attire ; gaudiness, however, is a quality whicii may 

 be pardoned in a flower, 



" Where tulip, lily, or the purple bell 

 Of Persian wind-flower ; or farther seen 

 The gaudy orient sun-flower from the crowd 

 Uplifts its golden circle." 



Maturiu's Universe, page h^. 



The sun-flower was formerly called marygold also, as the marygold 

 was termed sun-flower. Gerarde styles it the sun marygold. 



There is another genus producing the same kind of flowers, only 

 smaller, usually called the willow-leaved sun-flower. Tlieir botanical 

 name is Helenium, supposing them to have sprung from the tears of 

 Helen, the wife of Menelaus ; it has not been clearly ascertained upon 

 what occasion. Drummond speaks of __this flower in his lines on the 

 death of Prince Henry : — 



"Queen of the fields, whose blush makes blush the morn. 

 Sweet rose, a prince's death in purple mourn ; 

 O hyacinth, for ay your Ai keep still, 

 Nay with more marks of woe your leaves now fill : 

 And you, O flower ! of Helen's tears that's born. 

 Into those liquid pearls again now turn." 



