Samia Cecropia's Love Story* 



Elliot Rowland Downing 



HE night was fit for lovers' dreams. 

 The moonbeams from a widening cres- 

 cent fell slantwise through the lattice of 

 clustered blossoms, whose fragrance 

 distilled into the gentlest of spring 

 breezes. It was no wonder that the 

 rapture of mere existence merged into 

 passion, or that Samia's whole being 

 thrilled at the touch of her handsome 

 suitor. His strength, dash and hardihood were quite enough to 

 please so fair a mistress, although his beauty was scarred with the 

 marks of gallant frays. From Samia the bloom of youth had not 

 begun to disappear. She was clothed in all the exquisite freshness 

 and elegance of a debutante. As she lightly moved or poised 

 in garceful attitude, her whole being seemed the incarnation 

 of radiant beauty and perfect happiness. The world was full of 

 charm for this winsome child of the simbeams and zephjTs; life 

 was pulsing with unabated energy and zest ; suitors were all gallant 

 lovers and she care-free. 



Despite the beauty and grace of her perfect maturity, this 

 much-courted princess in her immaculate pown had been the 

 homliest of babies. Few ever saw her then without exclaiming up- 

 . on her ugliness. She was bom of a wanderer whose only tent was 

 a leafy thicket, and whose life was soon sniiifed out by exposure 

 and want. For Samia the wind sang the rock-a-bye song and truly 

 it was "Rock-a-bye baby upon the tree top," for there was her 

 cradle, yes ! a whole row of cradles, swaying on the leaf at the end 

 of a branch . Each cradle was a delicate eggshell . Mother Cecropia 

 had placed them there and had fastened the cradles securely with 

 glue of her own manufacture. They seemed such fragile little 

 spheres, each scarcely larger than a pin's head, yet what a mystery 

 was bound up within each paper-thin shell. That speck of life- 

 substance floating on its drop of nutrition, compassed by the filmy 

 shell, still baffles us, with its unsolved problems. There are the 

 potentialities of a creature of perfect beauty and vibrant energy; 



*Reprinted by permission from The Western Journal of Education. 



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